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The Science of Defeating an Authoritarian, Part 4 - Trump's Weaknesses [1]

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Date: 2025-02-26

As Rick Wilson (of the Lincoln Project) and George Conway (founder of PsychoPAC) say, Trump is easy to manipulate. Read on for how to do it.

This is the fourth diary in a series about how we can use social science to save our democracy.

I’m going to start with the examples that are less useful for everyday Americans and then finish with the more useful examples and action items. These first ones aren’t things you can do yourself, but they are evidence Trump has vulnerabilities.

Mark Esper’s Tactics

As SecDef, Esper did not want to use active duty military on the American people (as Trump wanted him to). He did not like Trump’s idea to make the Mexican border into a huge moat filled with snakes and alligators. He repeatedly did not want to do things Trump wanted him to do. Esper came up with a number of strategies, all detailed in his (excellent) book. One was telling Trump things were really expensive. “Snakes and alligators? Yes Mr. President, I looked into it. It’s going to cost a lot...” Trump’s cheap.

Trump also routinely doesn’t give direct orders. He behaves like a mob boss. He finds ways to let you know exactly what he wants done, but he doesn’t say it. (Michael Cohen has said this about him too.) Then the blame can’t be formally, officially traced back to him. As SecDef, Esper had to follow orders… but only if Trump gave them. Unless Trump gave a direct order for one of his Very Bad Ideas, Esper wouldn’t follow it. And Esper worked tirelessly to keep Trump from giving direct orders for his worst ideas.

Neither of these are useful tips for anyone not currently serving in the administration. Nor is this next one — but this next one can help us interpret the news a bit. Both Esper and Liz Cheney noticed that Trump wouldn’t do things if someone came out publicly ENOUGH and made sure he would look bad if he did it. For this reason, Esper went on camera and said he didn’t support using the military to suppress the George Floyd protests. Sure enough, Trump felt this made him (Trump) unable to use the military. He was furious about it, and never forgave Esper. (Watch the video — it aged well.)

Liz Cheney’s Tactics

For the same reason, when Liz Cheney worried Trump would invoke martial law to overturn the 2020 election, she got all 10 living Secretaries of Defense to sign a public letter opposing using the military to keep Trump in power. And it worked. Trump tried damn near about everything else, but he didn’t use the military.

The Stock Market

Trump wants to be able to brag about the stock market succeeding. If he does something massively stupid ::cough::tariffs::cough:: watch the stock market. His attempt to slap tariffs on Canada and Mexico didn’t last very long last week after the stock market responded. He might eventually pull the trigger on it — but he might not.

Overwhelming Public Resistance

Last time, Trump caved about kids in cages after audio of children crying became public. Most Americans opposed “family separation.” Trump lied about the policy, claiming that it was an Obama-era policy and he, Trump, was actually the one ending it. But he did cave to pressure, and he did end it. (For an excellent book on immigration that has more details on this and other Trump-era policies, I recommend Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here.)

How You Can Play Along At Home

Trump is paranoid. He wants all the power for himself, and he doesn’t want to look weak. He’s afraid those around him are taking advantage of him. He also doesn’t like when they make him look weak. He didn’t like this SNL sketch that made Bannon look more powerful than him, for example. Trump also didn’t like that his press secretary, Sean Spicer, was played by a woman on SNL. Believe it or not, Trump was so upset about it that he soured on Spicer. He brought in Anthony Scaramucci to drive Spicer out in the summer of 2017 (and it worked). (Trump’s actually a coward who doesn’t like firing people himself.) Bannon was out soon after that.

When you see anything like these sketches that Trump would find emasculating, laugh at them and share them. Make sure they get tons of likes, rates, reviews, views, comments, etc. If you are creative and can make content that would f*** with Trump, DO IT. Trump likes being feared but he doesn’t like being laughed at. Your job is to LAUGH AT HIM.

The Lincoln Project uses a strategy they call Audience of One. They make ads to f*** with Trump’s head and air them on the golf channel and Fox News in Palm Beach and DC. It’s not too expensive to do this since it’s just 2 channels in 2 markets, and they take donations if you’re feeling generous. Their latest ad is called President Musk.

This brings me to my real point. Trump was legally elected President, but Musk wasn’t — and he needs to go. Trump is 78 and he plays a lot of golf. Musk is hypomanic and working in what people close to him call “demon mode.” His team brought sofa beds into government offices and they are working nights and weekends. We’ve got Trump for four years so long as he remains healthy. We’ve only got Musk as long as he stays in Trump’s good graces.

How do you get rid of Musk? Trump needs to think Musk is using him to take some of his power. He needs to think he looks weak because of Musk. Musk is the real president and everyone is laughing at Trump, just like they did when SNL portrayed Bannon at the resolute desk and Trump at the kiddy desk with a toy.

Time magazine is helping out by showing Musk as president. Trump was asked about it and pretended he knew nothing (just like he had no idea who Mark Robinson was or what QAnon was). He definitely didn’t like it. And the Lincoln Project rubbed it in with their President Musk ad. Rick Wilson knows how to manipulate Trump and he used to make attack ads for Republicans. He’s good at it. (I recommend The Lincoln Project podcast too.)

Anything you can help go viral to suggest that Musk is the real president and Trump is too old, too out of it, too weak, being used by Musk — THE MORE OF THAT THE BETTER.

Anything you can create or help go viral that ridicules Trump is good. This Blue Sky post by Brooke Harrington (whose book I can I recommend highly enough by the way) is perfect.

The Lincoln Project strategy is to throw Trump off his game. They want him busy reacting to their trolling so that he isn’t busy acting on his own agenda.

If you’re a Harry Potter fan, Trump is a boggart. He looks like your worst nightmare come to life, but actually, you can obliterate him with laughter. Riddikulus!

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