Very good article and very prescient. This was written last August and I can imagine the author is dumbfounded that Trump has succeeded, but he has. And he has by using the methods of a bully.
I especially liked this:
Thus, truth-telling critics are the bully’s true enemy — not the opponent. For they and they alone hold the power to defeat the bully’s clever tactics of metainfluence. And so it’s vital for those critics to be not just ignored, nor rebutted, nor, worst of all, appeased — but silenced and deterred, diminished to invisibility.
That is why Trump, unlike most political candidates, does not merely answer his critics with policy proposals — but instead quickly, and usually viciously, leaps to discredit them. The critic is portrayed as not just unreasonable, or wrong, or mistaken — but also a “loser” or a “failure”. In a different league than the contender entirely.
Trump's supporters act this way too. You are very familiar with that, having come from a site that literally drove you away because you dared tell the truth about Trump. It's happened here, too, though to a much lesser extent because there are so few Trump followers.
Notice, Trump never takes on anybody about policy, because he can't. He's too ignorant of policy and knows he'd get slammed. So he attacks with ad hominems and bullying words.
Metainfluence can take you only so far. It’s like walking a tightrope. Scratch that. It’s like pointing to a tightrope stretched over a canyon, and then telling the crowd that everyone knows you can walk it the fastest. Maybe, just maybe, the crowd believes you. But suddenly, from the back, a catcall rises, and catches fire. The simple pitfall for metainfluence is this: he whom the mob crowns the mob can just as quickly jeer, scorn, and shun.
Unfortunately, the majority of Trump supporters are too invested in him at this point to risk losing face by turning away. So, they'll march off the edge of the cliff with him. And, he will ridicule them, call them losers, if they dare question why he didn't build that
wall or impose those tariffs.
Trump is dangerous. We cannot support him, for any reason. The SC is not worth risking the destruction of this country by entrusting governance to this total fool.
