The paradox of mega-rallies when Trump supporters are otherwise crypto: Herding to evade individual detection, like secret ballot voting

Outward symbols of supporting Trump have nearly vanished during the 2020 campaign vs. the 2016 campaign -- lawn signs, bumper stickers, and the famous red MAGA hats. And yet he is set to win re-election.

What has put a lid on expressing outward support for Trump is the climate of hysteria, paranoia, and vindictiveness that has been sustained for the past 4-5 years by the liberal half of the elites, those aspiring to join them, and the media who supply the content that they demand (dehumanization of Trump supporters, Trump admin, etc., whether in a normie flavor a la MSNBC or an edgy irony flavor a la Chapo Trap House).

As discussed in October, this is precisely the source of the media's massive polling bias that was predicting a double-digit win, and Electoral College blowout, for a challenger from the opposition party, which saw a fairly divisive primary, taking on the one-term incumbent from the dominant party, which was entirely united during the primary. If the media make it impossible to express support for Trump, naturally the polls will come out ridiculously in favor of Biden.

However, there are a few exceptions to this rule, where expressions of Trump support are through the roof. The rallies are as big or bigger than in 2016. The "cookie polls" in Ohio and Pennsylvania, which count up the number of cookies sold from a Biden version and a Trump version, are still going strong. Graffiti on public bathroom walls, that I've ever seen, is uniformly pro-Trump (Democrats only react to it, and these merely diss Trump, not support Biden, Bernie, or whoever). And of course, there's the actual voting, where Trump is not only going to win, but with greater turnout than the depressed levels of 2016.

What accounts for the difference? It boils down to whether or not the expression can be traced back to the individual supporter. If so, then the expression has gone into hiding, for fear of retaliation. But if not, then they are still present, perhaps more so.

The best way to view this is as herding behavior among a species that is being hunted by a small number of predators. If the individuals in the herd swarm as a collective, it's hard for the predators to tell one from the other, making it difficult to chase any single one of them down.

Here, the predators are the members of the media, activists, etc., who try to identify specific Trump supporters in order to make them a target for ostracism, getting fired, and so on and so forth.

If you have a Trump sign on your lawn, that is easily matched to your address, and even if the anti-Trump forces don't know your name, they at least know where to find you (to steal your signs, to egg your front door, to make loud noise that keeps you up at night, etc.). Likewise a bumper sticker on your car, hat on your head, and most of the other symbols.

But during a rally, there are thousands -- even tens of thousands -- of Trump supporters, making it information overload for the media, activists, etc. to apply facial recognition technology and generate a list of those in attendance, for distribution to anti-Trump forces. This is a real defeat for the would-be hunters since they're not just "identifying less than 100%" -- they are identifying 0%, because they're not going to bother at all in the face of such information overload.

So, you can go to a massive Trump rally, and no one will know unless you choose to stand right behind Trump, where the main cameras are pointed. If no one knows, there can be no retaliation against you. And therefore, the bigger the rally, the better it thwarts attempts to retaliate against the attendees.

Compare that to a small gathering of dozens, or even a minor protest of only hundreds. The media and activists can turn on their phones for a little while and get everyone's face, voice, unique clothing items, and so on. They can instantly upload those to social media, and then crowd-source the task of identifying the individuals by name, address, etc. Small herds are easily split up and picked over.

This is exactly the logic of secret ballot voting on the same day (or now, the same several-month window). Unless they choose to reveal their preference by putting on a MAGA hat after leaving the polling station, Trump supporters will never be found out when casting their vote. There's no way for anyone to discover that information, and start a chain of events that ends in retaliation against that specific voter. So, they're perfectly happy to turn out in droves to express support for Trump by casting a secret ballot.

The joke's on the cancel crew when it comes time to voting -- they have only rigged the system of individual expression against Trump supporters, but voting is an anonymous collective activity. Who's herd is bigger than who else's? They think that just because they've poisoned the atmosphere of lawn signs, hats, and bumper stickers, they've scared the Trump supporters into hiding on Election Day. But none of the Trump voters have to worry about being "punched as a Nazi" when they go out to the polls, because no one knows how they'll vote. If it came down to it, they could simply lie and say of course they're voting for Biden, in a political kind of taqiya.

This goes equally for the "cookie polls," i.e. the number of Trump cookies vs. Biden cookies at a single bellwether bakery in a battleground state like Ohio or Pennsylvania. No one knows which individuals purchased any of the cookies, but the total number of cookies is still known and can be made publicly available without compromising the secrecy of the "ballot". So, no one is afraid of buying Trump cookies, provided they believe the bakery to be non-partisan. This form of expression of support has not diminished at all, but grown if anything.

Although it's far less ubiquitous than the rallies, cookies, or the soon to be actual votes, public bathroom graffiti exemplifies the logic as well. It's not enough for it to be pseudonymous -- individuals generally use pseudonyms on social media platforms, but that doesn't stop them from getting targeted and suspended. While the IRL name of the account owner may not be known, their account name is. If a specific account posts heretical content, it can easily be identified as the offender and shut down.

With bathroom graffiti, not only does nobody know the IRL name of the tagger, but there's not even a pseudonym, account name, or other unique identifier to help shut down the activity coming from that individual. It's scrawled in secret, while no one else is watching, so good luck tracing it back to the writer. Certainly the owners of the bathroom can have it erased, but that's only tantamount to making a user of Twitter delete particular offending tweets -- not suspending their entire account, which would remove them from posting on the platform altogether. The bathroom scrawler can return whenever and leave as much or more pro-Trump graffiti.

By investing so much in the strategy of suppressing freedom of expression among Trump supporters, the media and activists have only succeeded in cleaning up the outward, individual symbols. If all they wanted was to never see a MAGA hat again, then mission accomplished. But if they wanted to actually diminish Trump support, they have only succeeded in making this support crypto or taqiya. And if they wanted to sap the collective power of their enemies, they have failed because those all benefit from information overload due to herding.

Attendees at a mega-rally, voters in the polling stations, God forbid platoons of troops on a hypothetical civil war battlefield -- none of these collective agents allow for the recognition of the individuals making them up, who are therefore immune against attempts at personal retaliation.

The libtards have sought to "weaken the Trump mob," but in suppressing all of their individual freedoms of expression, they have forced Trump supporters to adopt behaviors that are even more like those of a herd, crowd, mob, gang, or army. And individuals in collectives behave differently, protected as they are from personal retaliation. Credit and blame is so diffusely spread around the various individuals, that any one of them can do something reckless and get away with it.

Conservatards have done nothing of the sort toward their enemies. It's totally permissible to have Biden yard signs, hats, bumper stickers, and the rest of it. They won't be retaliated against for expressing their support for Biden or Democrats generally. No pathetic groups of conservative activists photographing every Biden yard sign they see, making lists of "known Biden supporters" in the community, getting them fired, and so on and so forth.

Crucially, the Biden supporters are not very good at the collective herd behaviors -- their rallies are non-existent, they don't buy cookies shaped like their candidate, they don't tag bathrooms with graffiti in favor of their guy, and they're not going to show up in large enough numbers at the polling stations to win the actual election.

If anything, the climate of hysteria, paranoia, and retaliation created by the media and activists has only made the liberal / left half of the elites more complacent and therefore individualist. They don't need to band together and herd. And they've made the conservative / right half feel more besieged, determined, and therefore collectivist.

Collective activities are no place for smug, secure individuals -- and that is why the liberals and leftists are going to lose when it counts -- like deciding who controls the government -- as long as they keep up their campaign of suppression of individual expression ("cancel culture"). As in all other areas, Tulsi Gabbard is the only Democrat politician with a national stature who could lead the way out of their quagmire, and she is the natural choice of those Trump supporters who are disaffected with the Trump admin's re-branded Reaganism, with only little hints of substantive change.

Celebrate the libtard tears tonight, but more importantly, support Tulsi and the others like her in the future so that we don't keep finding ourselves in this awful situation, where the only silver lining is "owning the libs". NEETs may not mind being part of a samizdat / taqiya movement, but normies would rather be able to openly express which candidate, party, and program they support.