It’s been 160 years since Charles Mackay published “Extraordinary Popular Delusions…” but his conclusions are everyday amplified by the dumb media, that which Trump calls the “Lying Media”. Mackay exposed “National Delusions”, “Peculiar Follies”, and “Philosophical Delusions”. He debunked as do Penn and Teller, alchemy, the very foolish Crusades which emptied European blood and treasure in a mania over “possession of the Holy Lands”, the influence of politics and religion on the shapes of beards and hair, popular admiration of great thieves, popular follies of great cities, and relics. Scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan mentioned the book in his own discussion about pseudoscience, popular delusions, and hoaxes.
The tactics, strategies and actions of today’s Media provides a vivid update of Extraordinary Delusions especially their flawed analysis and conclusions regarding Donald Trump. Of course the “Self-Deluded Media” would say Trump Derangement of the unwashed masses to favor Trump shows Mackay to have been right about the madness of crowds but the Media are a crowd, the crowd who is delusional.
The Media is a collection of individuals who have been so indoctrinated by their educators that they appear to think and act like a herd. Mackay got it extraordinarily wrong about crowds but Mackay, being a Scott, a European, the likes of which still have not fully grasped the idea of the individual. American’s learned of individuals as far back as the Declaration of Independence when Jefferson wrote about unalienable Rights which are not possessed by “The People” nor by the crowd but by each individual.
The Political Street, not the pollsters understand how Trump stands above the political rulers. Just as the Colonialists knew better than the King the oppression’s of the crowd of British governors and the damage they were doing to the lives of the Colonialists, so does the electorate who support Trump and who supported Sanders because they were not part of the political elite nor were they supported by the Media, although Crazy Bernie had much more media support than Trump.
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