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My argument -- the one I keep coming back to -- is that all of us are "those people" under the right circumstances. If you take any human and make them feel powerless and desperate for long enough, then start pumping up their anger, they'll change. You too.

You won't even feel it. You'll say the world is what changed. Then you'll have someone granting you permission to take all of that fear, self-doubt, and insecurity and unleash it on the enemy like a blast from a goddamned flamethrower. They don't even make a drug that feels that good.

Your Trump will carefully select and highlight the worst of the worst from the other side -- the most petty, disgusting, pig-ignorant cockroaches -- and hold them up to your eyes, every day. They will say that every common courtesy granted to them is a self-inflicted wound, that every act of petty meanness is a victory, every cruel joke an act of courage, every misfortune on their side a cause for spiteful celebration. This is war, they'll say, which means all rules go out the window. Even though real war actually has lots of rules. Whatever.

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This is the final lie of a demagogue -- that deep down, we're all no better than them, that the only way to win is to be even worse. I don't want you to believe that lie, to let Trump bring you down to the slimy pit of petty meanness where he dwells. There's no coming back from it.

Sounds Like:

"Fuck 'em. They did it to us first."

For more on this subject, see 6 Reasons Good People Turn Into Monsters, 5 Things To Understand About Modern Hate Groups, and 5 Reasons Humanity Desperately Wants Monsters to Be Real. David Wong is the author of the bestselling John Dies At The End series.

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