Who are we robbing?

I've had a weird career path. One of the effects of that is what I like to call "institutionalized paranoia." I'm constantly re-examining my own performance and my perception of the world. It's very easy to fall into False Attribution. That is where you see part of the story and then you make up your own reasons and plots for the rest of the story which typically turns out to be false.

Say you ask a friend to go see a movie and they say, "No." And then you think that your friend doesn't like you, doesn't like what you like, or something along those lines when in reality they really would like to go, but have already committed to something else (like mowing their grandparent's lawn). Take the movie "Oceans 12" for example. Almost the entire movie is a red herring and you only find out what was really going on, and how the game was over before it began, at the end.

So sometimes you look at evidence that doesn't make any sense, and you try to work it into a cohesive narrative. It is, after all, what our brains are designed to do.

For instance, the Trump campaign. Many of the moves, positions, staffing decisions, etc make absolutely no sense in a traditional narrative. People then come to the conclusion that he 1) has no real clue as to how to win an election (politically inept), 2) doesn't know how to function when people don't really need him or his money (narcissistic) or 3) is intentionally throwing the election (a ringer for Clinton).

But what if it's something else entirely? What if it's all going according to a plan. It's just that his plan is not the standard story we all know about how someone becomes President. What if we think he's playing checkers when he's actually playing Parcheesi or Go?

And I'm sure this is all tin-foil hat kinda stuff.

But what if he is setting up a power grab? What if he's intentionally courting the white supremacists who have been waiting and planning for their race war since the late 70s? What if he's giving voice, cover, and recruitment for organizations that have grown more numerous and who's ranks have swelled since President Obama took office? What if he is using the GOP to run cover for his real operation? What if the anger and violence at his rallies isn't accidental or unintended? What if he's signaling in the open, but we're misreading those signals as ineptitude? What if the worse case scenarios were real and after the election, where he will lose badly, he gives the go words, "The election was stolen from the American People"? What then? What if Maher was just one group jumping the gun because they didn't see the whole board and got ahead of themselves?

Could that explain his staffing choices of thugs and mercenaries? Could that explain his often erratic and troubling stances on non-inclusion of races and religions? Could that explain the number of spokespeople and campaigners (and staffers) that have ties to white nationalism? Could that explain how he quickly disavows somethings but took over a week to disavow Duke? Could that explain his staffers comments and positions ("says who?")? Could that explain the numerous retweets of known racists and even including their visuals at his rallies? Could that explain the rumblings of support from the racists? Could Duke running for office be another smoke screen to cover organizing (and that he's running his own game to gain power)?

Are we seeing signs that in December we'll all be saying, "Why, it's all so clear in retrospect?"

I'm sure it's just my institutionalized paranoia. But it makes me wonder exactly what the Southern Poverty Law Center is seeing in the field and if anyone there is as worried as I am at this point.