Donald Trump's recent fundraising emails have taken his manipulation of MAGA followers to a new level of creepiness. Check out this recent fundraising email, which, as Chauncey DeVega notes in Salon, is dripping with psychosexual and phallic undertones, revealing the depths of Trump's cult-like hold over his base.
THIS IS PRESIDENT TRUMP:
Now is the time to help me SAVE AMERICA and chip in
I'LL ALWAYS LOVE YOU!
Has Biden ever told you that?
NOPE! NEVER!
I'll always love you because you never stopped loving me.
Through the hoaxes, the Witch Hunts, the arrests, YOU STUCK BY MY SIDE!
Even when they were taking my mugshot, I FELT YOUR LOVE GROW TEN TIMES STRONGER!
True MAGA Patriots like you are the only reason I'm still standing.
I've just got one thing to say:
I'LL NEVER STOP FIGHTING FOR YOU.
I need you to take your support to the next level, and show every single Democrat that the MAGA movement is STRONG AND POWERFUL
SAVE AMERICA
Together we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
May God bless you.
By exploiting their need for validation and belonging, Trump positions himself as a messiah-like figure, demanding loyalty and cash in exchange for his twisted form of "love."
Trump's emails also employ emotionally manipulative language, alternating between declarations of love and stoking existential fear, to keep followers psychologically unbalanced and dependent. Here's another one:
I will always love you…
Please read the letter I wrote last night!
Now is the time to help me SAVE AMERICA >
RESPOND TO TRUMP
You are truly a special Patriot, and I really mean that.
You are the only reason I'm still running for President!
They've thrown everything at me: Hoaxes, Witch Hunts, Impeachments, Indictments, Raids, and ARRESTS!
But you never left my side. NOT EVER!
So this letter goes out to every single member of the MAGA Movement…
I WILL NEVER SURRENDER!!!
Please respond to me whenever you can! I love reading what you True Trump Republicans have to say.
"Trump's fundraising emails and other online communications alternate between messages of love and hate, friends, and enemies, as a way of creating a type of perpetual emotional imbalance that triggers anxiety and a lack of security and certainty," writes DeVega. These messages fulfill the same role as Trump's rallies — providing a sense of community and shared grievance that binds the MAGA crowd to their leader, no matter how unhinged his rhetoric becomes. They also include calls for violence:
Attacking President Biden in effigy [at a GOP fundraising event in Kansas] is part of a much larger pattern of behavior. Several days ago, Donald Trump sent out another email with threats of "bloodshed" — this time in an act of projection onto Biden and the so-called border crisis. Trump's repeated use of language such as "bloodshed" reveals, again, the corrupt ex-president's malevolent intent.
There will be blood. There has already been lots of blood spilled during the Trumopocene (never to be forgotten are the hundreds of thousands of people who died in the United States because of the Trump regime's act of COVID democide). There will be more violence and blood in the months leading up to Election Day. Violence is one of the fascist's greatest weapons and a defining feature of such politics. Based on his years of statements and behavior, if Donald Trump wins or loses the 2024 election such a bad outcome is almost a certainty.
See also: Spot a MAGA victim in the wild with this simple "debate and switch" trick (video)
