Carpenter: What Has Sarah Palin Done for Donald Trump?

The first thing a great many people, politicos, and non-politicos alike, said in private conversations when they heard the news that Sarah Palin would endorse Donald Trump is, "What did he pay her?"

That may be an unfair question, but it's perfectly fair to put it this way: "What has Donald Trump done for Sarah Palin?" Meaning, what has Trump done to promote the values that Palin's supporters have been advocating for the past eight years?

For starters, look at the three major issues that gave rise to and have animated the Tea Party since 2008 when then-Governor Palin burst on the national scene: The bailouts, the stimulus, and Obamacare.

At several points in her endorsement speech, Palin decried 'the establishment,' a term that became popular in response to Republicans and Democrats cooperating to prop up Wall Street banks after the 2008 financial crash. Palin supporters, by and large, vehemently opposed the bailouts.

Did Trump? When the time came to choose between the Tea Party activists and his friends in the New York/Washington corridor, Trump chose the latter.

Donald Trump was no Rick Santelli. Trump was for the $700 billion bailout program, which is as establishment as it gets. He was for the subsequent auto bailout, too.

President Obamaâ€™s $787 billion stimulus bill? Yep. You betcha. Trump was for that.

Irving Janis was a Psych professor at Yale (ring a bell). He researched groupthink and developed eight groupthink behaviors.

I recast them below as commandments of the progressive left.

Check out number IV and look again at the Daily News cover.

I Thou shalt create an illusion of invulnerability shared by most members to foster excessive optimism and encourage extreme risks taking

II Thou shall not allow any member to question the groupâ€™s inherent morality, instead members shall be encouraged to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions

III Thou shalt promote collective efforts to rationalize in order to discount warnings, or other information that might lead members to reconsider their assumptions before they recommit themselves to their assumptions

IV Thou shalt reinforce stereotyped views of enemy leaders as too evil to warrant genuine attempts to negotiate, or as too weak and stupid to counter whatever risky attempts are made to defeat their purpose

V Thou shalt self-censor any deviation from the apparent group consensus, inclining each member to minimize the importance of their doubts and counterarguments

VI Thou shalt create and maintain a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgement conforming to the majority view

VII Thou shalt apply direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the groupâ€™s stereotypes, illusions, or commitments, making clear that this type of dissent is contrary to what is expected of all loyal members

VIII Thou shalt appoint mindguards to protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions

REF:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Janis

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