That time of year: Demagogue dialogue

By Dale Short

I hadn't used the word in so long, I had to look it up: Demagogue. Has kind of a scary sound, doesn't it? A little bit like Godzilla. "Run!

Demagogue is coming!"Scary for good reason, the old Merriam-Webster tells us. "DEM-uh-

gog: A leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power."

An online source called Urban Dictionary says it in a more streetwise way: "A leader who uses a number of underhanded political techniques in order to gain power, including: warmongering, fear, censorship, nationalism, xenophobia, hateful rhetoric, false logic, and blatant lies. Uses the blind, patriotic support of the people to institute a corrupt and oppressive government."

Sound like any politician you've heard speak lately? Yep.I'll give Mr. Trump credit, he's an excellent entertainer. He knows the

pulse of a certain slice of the public and tells them what they want to hear. These are things they were already thinking but hesitated to say in public because it would make them seem mean-spirited and bigoted. Mainly because those things ARE mean-spirited and bigoted.

But, back to Mr. Trump. Six months ago, I would have pegged the chances of him running for president as about ten to one. If I'd bet a dollar, I'd be nine dollars richer--minus the bookie's cut, of course. I would have predicted the odds of his becoming, by double digits, the leader in the GOP polls, at maybe a hundred to one. Then, I'd be 99 dollars richer. And so on.

The art of telling people what they want to hear but are afraid to say is a tried and true tradition, going back centuries or even millennia, of winning elections.

Plus, there's a strange reinforcing element at work here that the media is complicit in. His face and voice are everywhere because he's considered newsworthy, and he's considered newsworthy because his face and voice are everywhere.

Smart man. And reverse psychology? When he says things demeaning to women, more women support him. When he says he wants to deport millions of people, the poem on our Statue of Liberty becomes just a dusty antique: "Give me your tired, your poor..."

His foreign policy? Make our military so much bigger and stronger that the rest of the world is afraid of us. If they do anything we don't like, we'll just kick their rear end.

Which is sort of like saying that if policemen just become mean enough, crime will disappear. False logic?

Especially because just six months ago, many of those who now support Mr. Trump were saying angrily, "We've got no business being the whole world's policeman!" What changed their tune? A pitch by a smooth salesman.

And one who wants to run the country just like running a big corporation. This, just two weeks after a national news article reported that working for big, powerful companies like Amazon is literally making people sick.

The contradictions are endless. But a smooth enough salesman can bulldoze over contradictions faster than you can say, "Build a bigger wall!"

Probably my favorite contradiction, though, is that when he got to the South he started mentioning that his favorite book is the Bible. His second favorite, not surprisingly, is a book he wrote: "The Art of the Deal."

Maybe he's only read the Old Testament, the fighting and smiting parts, because I can't picture Jesus sitting at the head of a conference table and trying to get more money out of people.

Having a reporter thrown out of your press conference? Depending on who you ask, that's either "censorship" or "showing strength." And so on.

Remember that troubling analogy Jesus used? "The last among you shall be first, and the first shall be last."

By the time November of 2016 rolls around, Mr. Trump may not be first in line for the White House. But if he keeps telling people what they want to hear, Jesus knows he won't be last.

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(Dale Short is a native of Walker County. His e-mail address is dale.short@gmail.com)