It's Magic

Who is the world’s most impressive magician?  David Copperfield?  Penn and Teller? David Blaine? Apollo Robbins? Who? The Guardian picks the ten best at:

  (https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2013/may/04/the-10-best-magicians ).

Magicians are artists of deception.  They fool their audiences into attentively watching one thing while something else is also happening which the audience is not focused on: “misdirection.”

Misdirection takes various forms: beautiful women wander around the stage as assistants, odd costumes are worn, funny hair, explosions, smoke, colorful big ties.  Basically, they control your attention.

With skillful misdirection, a magician can make strange things happen.  Apollo Robbins can take peoples’ watches off their wrists, remove their rings or wallets, and take just about anything, without their victims knowing that the items are gone. Copperfield has an elephant show up on stage and then disappear!

But no magician so far has ever tried to make an entire government disappear. Or remove health insurance from 24,000,000 poor and old people while they were watching reality TV in their Lazy Boy recliners.

 Until now.

Donald Trump is, by any standard, the most ambitious magician alive today.  He has all the magicians skills, and more, working for him.  Beautiful women, weird hair, clown ties, and shocking tweets. He has total control over our attention.

If Donnie can pull off the trick he intends, he should be entitled to a slot in the Magicians Hall of Fame.  His chief advisor, Steve  Bannon (a.k.a. Rasputin) says the trick is to make the “administrative state” disappear.  Here is the detailed  plan:


https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/03/13/presidential-executive-order-comprehensive-plan-reorganizing-executive

Meanwhile, the master of misdirection, has everyone, including respected news outlets, totally focused on how Obama used a microwave oven to spy on him during the last election. Or maybe his beef with  Snoop Doggy Dog.

While we fret all over Twitter and Facebook about the spies embedded in our kitchen appliances and Snoopy, large chunks of American life are poised to disappear: public lands, protection of the environment, fuel economy, Federal prosecutors, energy conservation, legal services for the poor, weatherization assistance for the poor, intelligence agencies, taxes on the wealthy, health care for 24,000,000 people, the Coast Guard, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Chemical Safety Board, job straining,  scientific research, and much more.

 Check out the whole list here: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-is-what-trumps-budget-would-eliminate-entirely-2017-03-16?mod=mw_share_twitter

It's magic.

Magicians are very ethical and always give wallets and watches back after removing them, but I don’t think that's going to happen with this trick.

 So sad.

This raises an obvious question: What does the Magician in Chief get out of this (other than millions in tax savings from the repeal of the alternative minimum tax)?

He gets high.

According to a leading psychologist, Paul Ekman, people who deceive other people experience “duping delight”.  It's a rush of dopamine that shows up when you realize you have well and truly bamboozled someone.  The intensity of the rush depends on the size of deception, the gullibility of the deceived, and the respect enjoyed by success in the deception. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman).

Trump must be loaded 24-7 with dopamine.