Why Does Trump Get So Much Attention? Totalitarian Techniques | Tim Wu | Big Think

Trump has followed an ignoble history of attracting attention using techniques that other totalitarian leaders used before him, particularly the fascists. Now, I’m not saying those are the views of Trump, but I’m saying he does use the same methods.

And one of the keys – this is something that Adolf Hitler in particular understood – is that the most compelling way to fire up your audience is to speak to their unconscious fears and hatreds and give voice to them in a way. That seems so really, in terms of intention, to just grab people in this very intense way.

So if you study carefully the rise of the Third Reich, it is fascinating how well the speakers of the Third Reich targeted unconscious, unspoken but truly present fears, hatreds, and powerful emotions, you know, far beyond the thinking mind. I think that those techniques, whether or not you’re a Nazi or Hitler, whatever you are, are effective for anyone who wants to captivate their audience and inspire an angry rally.

And so I think there’s some similarities. One of the things I also think is very interesting about the rise, you know, Trump’s success in, particularly in the primary campaign. He’s obviously a master attention merchant and a master at getting people to just want to see what he does next.

And, you know, we have a private media. We don’t have a state media. Nonetheless, there has been for the last year the phenomenon where you turn on the television or you turn on any website, and there’s Trump’s face. You know, it reminds me of the heights of some of the totalitarian schemes, or like North Korea, where everywhere you looked there’s a great leader, or in China during the 60’s, everywhere you looked there was Mao.

Everywhere you looked, you could not get away from this. And I think, you know, Trump may come to lose this election, but I think the rise has been terrifying. The use of the private media to effectively propagandize and get billions of dollars in what has been effectively free coverage has been something to learn from.

And every republic is always in some danger of tipping over into an authoritarian regime, and it usually is control of the media that begins that process.