But Trump cannot function as a Girardian scapegoat for society as a whole. He has too many backers. Too many people identify with him.

Paradoxes like this are actually defining characteristics of the scapegoat.

- he is a rich billionaire but also a broke failure

- he is the most hated, but also the most popular

- he has been a ny elite (insider) for decades, but his base is rural and blue collar (outsider).

- he is dumb and unsophisticated but also a cunning planner and schemer

Supporters are not immune from the scapegoat effect. They also believe one man can control the universe.

In Peter Thiels 2013 book he describes successful founders and extreme personalities as having similar characteristics. It’s hard not to make similar observations about Musk (super genius, who is an idiot).

The social dynamics are too powerful to perceive anything real about them.

But supporters are not going to unite with haters to kill Trump, either literally or figuratively. Sure, Trump has a lot of the characteristics, but the way Girard says the scapegoat plays out is not going to happen with Trump. Even if he loses the election - even if he winds up in jail - a significant chunk of the country is still going to support him. He's not going to be universally condemned and unite everyone by their rejection of him.

Girardian theory describes the kinds of people who have scapegoat potential. It doesn’t prophecy that every insider/outsider will get killed, but that they have or are a sign of mimetic energy.

We are experiencing capulets vs mortigues.

Girard is also describing ancient origins. He argues the effectiveness and violence of scapegoating is reduced in modern context.

> capulets vs mortigues

see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guelphs_and_Ghibellines

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots#Background

My theory is that any hegemons (lacking significant exterior scapegoat possibilities) sooner or later divide into factions.

When I was growing up in the States, there was a significant overlap between the left R wing and the right D wing. Since I left the Old Country, it seems (from afar) like that overlap has disappeared, and maybe there's even unoccupied space where the middle used to be.

I agree that he could easily be functioning as a scapegoat mechanism, uniting people who believe "anyone but".

As to being an actual scapegoat, I doubt it: scapegoats are innocent.

He is accused of being a racist (Central Park 5) misogynist ("Grab em") bigot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX9reO3QnUA#t=16)

We are apparently a long time removed from 'quoniam meos tam suspicione quam crimine iudico carere oportere'.

Yeah, the central park 5 were innocent but everyone was racist in the 80s if that is the standard. All those poor kids were doing was beating random people, stealing from them, and knocking them out and leaving them for dead to whoever might come along. But they weren't rapists.

Yes, and Trump was happy to judge before any facts came out (also well before the city settled for $41M), based apparently on (a) what he thought had happened, and (b) how he thought the justice system ought to work; most people in the 80s would not have done that.

lighter: https://www.theonion.com/trump-takes-out-full-page-newspaper...

darker: http://apps.frontline.org/clinton-trump-keys-to-their-charac...

Note that even in Russia, the death penalty theoretically no longer exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country

Yes, Trump judged, and about 95% of society at that time did as well.

And the CP5 almost certainly were out there assaulting strangers in the park. What they (probably) didn't do was rape the lady. They just knocked her out so that someone else could come along and rape her.

> Not a fan of Trump to say the least but it also seems rather obvious who is functioning as a the scapegoat mechanism for a large group of people.

I'm not getting this, tbh. One wpuld think that the closest to a 'scapegoat' would be Brandon, not Trump.

That’s precisely the deep rooted divide.

> Something like the more we become the same , the more we become engulfed in mimetic rivalry.

What you're describing sounds like a variation of what Sigmund Freud called the narcissism of small differences.