From Barnum to snake-oil salesmen, to Joseph Smith to holy rollers, to Hubbard to Trump, there can’t be a people in history that has been more completely taken in en masse, and so often, by their respective culture’s archetypal conman than Americans.

Flashy, loud, shallow, fraudsters - even a casual read of their biographies, American conmen are remarkably similar in their personalities and schtick, with uncanny parallels in their life stories.

MeisterEckhart wrote on Oct 3^rd, 2024 at 8:20am:


Miscavige was worse than L Ron, hard to imagine Vance being worse than Trump, but he's shown that he'll abandon his beliefs and ethics for power, and he's far more capable than Trump, so he just might be.

They all have one thing in common, promising salvation via an ever-increasing need to pay up.

I was watching a bullion dealer's show today featuring an interview with a customer who was selling all his silver stack to buy gold to leave the country.

The customer? A jovial, friendly, seemingly well-balanced mid-western American.

Why was he leaving? He was convinced that the 2020 election was stolen and that the CIA, FBI and others were embroiled in a conspiracy to overthrow Trump if he were reelected which, he said, would drive the US into a civil war... He was getting out of the US while the getting was good.

you have to understand where americans came from.

they were mainly europeans who fell for the slick marketing of moving to the USA

they were, by definition optomists

they were by definition free spirited and worshiped at the altar of personal agency (personal responsibility)

they were fleeing the oppressive over governed european countries

they abhore feeding off the titty of government

they were fleeing the claustrophobic "safe space' of european chode purgatory to go on a grand adventure


dreamers, doers, risk takers, believers, optomists

by the way pessimists tend to earn about half the income of optomists

so it pays to be a bit gullible and optomistic

cynics get to be broke, a large price to pay for that little hit of dopamine when you are correct every now and then and can say "i told you so "

'Between 1700 and 1775, approximately 52,200 convicts sailed for the American colonies, more than 20,000 of them to Virginia.'

Many became gunmen under the 2nd Amendment and joined the NRA. Some wrote fake news or just read it and voted MAGA.