If we remember Norman Vincent Peale’s belief that “attitudes are more important than facts,” and chaos magick’s aim to escape our existing “cognitive habits”—not to mention Hitler’s power to release his followers from the “limitations of all conventional restraint”—we can, I think, see a connection between Trump’s “bullshit” and much of what we have been considering so far. If we bring in postmodernism’s rejection of any notion of an “objective” truth—all truth for it being strictly relative—we can see why Trump is the “post-truth alternate fact” patron saint par excellence.
For chaos magick and postmodernism, whether something is true or false simply no longer matters. Truth or falsehood are beliefs which we can take on or put off as need be. This is why confronting Trump or his followers with proof of his mistakes, inaccuracies, and downright lies has so far had little effect. Pointing out that Trump is bullshitting makes no difference. He knows he is. He is doing it on purpose and has done so throughout his career. For him it is “truthful hyperbole,” what he calls “an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion.” [Art of the Deal, p. 85]
...When the board of directors of Holiday Inn asked to see what work was being done on a project that had stalled, Trump arranged for his construction team to pretend to work, with a digger clawing up tons of earth and dumping it on the other side of the site.[Art of the Deal, p. 142-43] The board saw what they wanted to see and were duly impressed; Trump got their approval.
Like all good illusionists, confidence tricksters, and demagogues, Trump knows how to read his audience. It is a trait indispensable for his success and gave him a leg up on his competition. “My leverage,” he writes, “came from confirming an impression they were already predisposed to believe,” something demagogues make much use of.[Art of the Deal, p. 38] Hitler, Mussolini, and other charismatic leaders were successful because they convinced their listeners that what they already felt about the state of things was right; they only confirmed this. Illusionists do much the same.
Gary Lachman, Dark Star Rising (2018), pp. 75-76
Bottom line: Trump knows what he's doing. He's not delusional. He simply doesn't believe he's constrained by reality as most people experience it. He believes that he can bend it to his will, and if you look at his career, he has good reason to believe he can do it. He's not delusional. He just has a relationship to reality that is different from the rest of us. Question is whose reality wins in the long run. His reality has nothing to do with the deep Living Real, of course, but that's a problem these days for almost everyone. And it provides the conditions for the possibility of a Trump.