The traditional point of a scam is to separate a fool and his money, or perhaps to deflate a gasbag. It's tempting to simply call the current Republican freak-out a scam because the goal of those driving it is the accumulation of power, which is the point of money, but the damage being done dwarfs any loss of money or dignity. It's really just demagoguery in service of fascism, the almost inevitable result of unregulated capitalism deciding to take day-to-day management into its own hands. Not that the Titans of Industry are solely responsible or going to wind up in charge, as German industrialists found out. Our situation rhymes the previous unpleasantness at best, but the raw materials are the same. An ocean of fear and resentment, and a growing swarm of cons and marks anxious to take advantage, almost none of them thinking through where this takes them.
An epic post. I just can't grok people who fall for these scams, but as I read in one of the Rick Perlstein's books, the direct mail works disproportionately well for the Conservative universe, and Richard Vigueries (sp?) was an early innovator. One thing that I was stunned by was how much money these scam's bring in, and how little of it ended up for the original, purported intent.
Thank you for this piece, it does a fine job of articulating why it is so important to investigate why the same type of con works over and over in just slightly different forms. The mark is such an integral part of the con that it seems ridiculous to overlook them during the dissection of a successful con job. I'm sure that all of us know, or have family, who have been suckered in to believing a narcissist's fearmongering to the point that they cannot see the truth that is right in front of them.
The traditional point of a scam is to separate a fool and his money, or perhaps to deflate a gasbag. It's tempting to simply call the current Republican freak-out a scam because the goal of those driving it is the accumulation of power, which is the point of money, but the damage being done dwarfs any loss of money or dignity. It's really just demagoguery in service of fascism, the almost inevitable result of unregulated capitalism deciding to take day-to-day management into its own hands. Not that the Titans of Industry are solely responsible or going to wind up in charge, as German industrialists found out. Our situation rhymes the previous unpleasantness at best, but the raw materials are the same. An ocean of fear and resentment, and a growing swarm of cons and marks anxious to take advantage, almost none of them thinking through where this takes them.
An epic post. I just can't grok people who fall for these scams, but as I read in one of the Rick Perlstein's books, the direct mail works disproportionately well for the Conservative universe, and Richard Vigueries (sp?) was an early innovator. One thing that I was stunned by was how much money these scam's bring in, and how little of it ended up for the original, purported intent.
That really warps my brain.
Thank you for this piece, it does a fine job of articulating why it is so important to investigate why the same type of con works over and over in just slightly different forms. The mark is such an integral part of the con that it seems ridiculous to overlook them during the dissection of a successful con job. I'm sure that all of us know, or have family, who have been suckered in to believing a narcissist's fearmongering to the point that they cannot see the truth that is right in front of them.