Manipulate the Gullible

Manipulate the gullible.

This seemed always and openly a tactic of some businessmen and their organizations. Some even became famous for it. And we laugh at it.

Now I see that it's emerging just how coordinated, how intentional, how clever, and how extensive this deliberate manipulation has been. It is not nearly so funny in the age of Putin and Trump. For when this kind of business person or organization manipulates a citizenry, both politics and religion get involved, because many lawmakers and preachers have found there is good money to be made, and a secure power base to be established, in manipulation.

For preachers, it's fleecing the flock, even if it is not also misrepresenting the religion. Some would argue it has always been organized religion's secret purpose. That argument, frankly, does not lack credible evidence.

For politicians, it's turning Government by the People into a scrupulously maintained, decades-long scam. For some, it has always been such, and the perpetrators of the scam, and their heirs and sycophants, are not about to stop, the principles of the Founding Fathers be damned.

It is not a tactic, and perhaps never truly has been. It is a strategy.