Another story about extreme abuses by teachers has come out in Florida schools; however many people may not realize that this is far more common than the isolated stories reported by the media imply, in some schools. This isn't limited to Florida; however there are more of these high profile stories that have come out of the South where corporal punishment is considered more acceptable and many of the worst often come from Florida.
I don't like to single out one state or region for criticism; however when they use a bad practice that back fires and the evidence is overwhelming then recognizing this can show how to dramatically reduce violence; and no one will benefit more than the regions that are currently abusing kids more, leading to escalating violence.
This report includes a teacher that abused his own four year old so badly paddling her with a board that she died and he was convicted of murder and several other teachers doing petty things like pulling chairs out from under students, and other activities that they're supposed to teach the students not to do. This doesn't mean that all of the teachers in Florida are bad at all; apparently some of these teachers are now being prosecuted because of tougher accountability laws demanded by the teachers unions, who are apparently as outraged as many parents and civil rights activists by this activity and want to fix it as much if not more than anyone else.
This type of activity isn't new and it goes back centuries but it hasn't been completely eliminated and most people still don't realize the full consequences for this and how it leads to more violence when abused children grow up and turn out to be violent adults.
It is virtually guaranteed that the reason that these teachers became so abusive as adults is because they were abused as children them selves when this was considered normal and acceptable.
Some of these activities date back to when they still had slaves; and many of the practices that we thought were eliminated after the civil war really weren't. In some cases they continued to use slave labor or virtual slave labor in prisons of reform schools for boys. Some of the worst atrocities were exposed in the past couple of decades by the "White House Boys" who were former residents of a few boys schools who were abused and spurred an investigation into people that were considered the pillars of the community, but turned out to be abusive man doing more harm than good. Many children that went to these abusive reform schools may have come out more violent than when they went in, since that is what they were taught when they were in there.
The highest murder rates are in the states that have the highest acceptance of corporal punishment, including Florida which made it into the top ten in 2014, which is unusual for such a large state, since they often have more diverse population including some more progressive areas.
Corporal punishment and other abuses also leads to increased class conflict since it is often used more against minorities or those with the lowest education that are expected to do menial work. this is part of a process that many people don't recognize to control the working class and ensure that they blindly obey orders whether it means accepting lower wages when the upper classes ship jobs overseas to suppress unions, or when they want recruits to join the military and blindly obey orders when fighting wars based on lies.
This goes beyond abuse of children; it is also about control and indoctrination so that the ruling class can preserve their own authority; however some of the psychological manipulation takes more research to fully understand.
Florida is also the state where the 1977 Supreme Court case Ingraham v. Wright, came from where they decided that school children weren't protected under the constitution from cruel and unusual punishment or for lack of due process, even for trivial offenses like allegedly not leaving the stage of an auditorium fast enough when ordered to by a teacher. This is not typical, even in Florida; however in some of the worst schools they can be badly abused and the Supreme Court has decided to do nothing, a ruling which stands to this day; although many other states have banned corporal punishment since then and many teachers are trying to reduce it even in the South.
Regrettably even many police consider this acceptable and one of them even stood by while it happened without seeming to understand the consequences, which is almost certainly a contributing cause for police violence as well.
The following describes some of these incidents recently exposed:
State officials weigh cases of 18 Northeast Florida teachers for possible discipline 01/19/2017
At least 18 Northeast Florida teachers may lose their teaching licenses or face other punishments after a series of professional practices hearings held in Tallahassee on Thursday and Friday. ....
Most of the teachers on trial have already been investigated by their districts for a variety of alleged misdeeds, ranging in severity from first-degree murder and assault to cheating on tests. Many have already been punished by their districts with suspensions, firings or letters of reprimand. ....
The most well-known Duval County case involves John Norfleet, a teacher at Andrew Jackson High who in 2015 was arrested for disciplining his 4-year-old daughter at home with a 1-by-2-inch piece of lumber. She died after the beating, and he received life in prison plus 30 years. His wife, the girl’s stepmother, was sentenced to 60 years.
Most other cases before the panel were for less severe incidents.
At least three Duval teachers were disciplined after allegations that they caused physical harm to students.
Lenora Peterson-Cook, who taught at Cedar Hills Elementary, and Robin Welch Kennedy, who taught at Neptune Beach Elementary, were each accused on separate occasions of pulling or tipping a chair, causing a student to fall.
While teaching second grade, Peterson-Cook in 2015 was accused of using profanity, flipping off students with her self-described “chocolate finger,” throwing a pencil at a student and pulling the chair out from under a student. She admitted to saying inappropriate things, cursing, flipping off students and grabbing one by the arm, but she denied pulling a chair out from under a student, district documents show.
The district suspended her for 30 days without pay.
Kennedy was teaching third grade in 2013 when she was accused of tipping two students’ chairs on separate occasions, causing students to fall. She denied doing that. She also was charged with driving under the influence in 2011 and 2012, so the district recommended a 15-day suspension without pay, the reports state.
Winston Northern, a computer technology teacher at A. Philip Randolph Career Academies, was investigated by the district when a parent complained that Northern had allowed a parent to “administer corporal punishment” a student in front of the class. Northern denied that anyone was physically chastised in his class. The district’s investigator concluded that not enough evidence exists to prove or disprove the allegation. Complete article
At least 18 Northeast Florida teachers may lose their teaching licenses or face other punishments after a series of professional practices hearings held in Tallahassee on Thursday and Friday. ....
Most of the teachers on trial have already been investigated by their districts for a variety of alleged misdeeds, ranging in severity from first-degree murder and assault to cheating on tests. Many have already been punished by their districts with suspensions, firings or letters of reprimand. ....
The most well-known Duval County case involves John Norfleet, a teacher at Andrew Jackson High who in 2015 was arrested for disciplining his 4-year-old daughter at home with a 1-by-2-inch piece of lumber. She died after the beating, and he received life in prison plus 30 years. His wife, the girl’s stepmother, was sentenced to 60 years.
Most other cases before the panel were for less severe incidents.
At least three Duval teachers were disciplined after allegations that they caused physical harm to students.
Lenora Peterson-Cook, who taught at Cedar Hills Elementary, and Robin Welch Kennedy, who taught at Neptune Beach Elementary, were each accused on separate occasions of pulling or tipping a chair, causing a student to fall.
While teaching second grade, Peterson-Cook in 2015 was accused of using profanity, flipping off students with her self-described “chocolate finger,” throwing a pencil at a student and pulling the chair out from under a student. She admitted to saying inappropriate things, cursing, flipping off students and grabbing one by the arm, but she denied pulling a chair out from under a student, district documents show.
The district suspended her for 30 days without pay.
Kennedy was teaching third grade in 2013 when she was accused of tipping two students’ chairs on separate occasions, causing students to fall. She denied doing that. She also was charged with driving under the influence in 2011 and 2012, so the district recommended a 15-day suspension without pay, the reports state.
Winston Northern, a computer technology teacher at A. Philip Randolph Career Academies, was investigated by the district when a parent complained that Northern had allowed a parent to “administer corporal punishment” a student in front of the class. Northern denied that anyone was physically chastised in his class. The district’s investigator concluded that not enough evidence exists to prove or disprove the allegation. Complete article
How can any reasonable person believe that tipping a students chair over or throwing a pencil at a student is a reasonable way of teaching them to behave, assuming some of these allegations are true? using coercive methods to teach obedience is far more common in the south where they're taught to obey authority and believe them more which is why they were more inclined to believe police officers when they pulled someone over for DUI; however there have been many cases where additional evidence has proven that some students have been telling the truth when some of these reports are made or that police officers have been falsifying evidence.
When children see their teachers or parents behave in this manner they conclude that it is acceptable as long as it is being done by someone in authority and they learn to do it themselves when they get away with it or later in life when they become the authority figures.
Police in many of these conservative areas have no idea how corporal punishment teaches violence as indicated in the following article from a couple years ago:
Florida Cop Agreed To "Stand By" And Watch As Father Paddled His Misbehaving Daughter 01/2/2017
Here is the police report filed by the Florida sheriff’s deputy who last week agreed to “stand by” and watch while a father spanked his misbehaving 12-year-old daughter with a paddle.
Last Monday evening, Okeechobee Sheriff’s Office Deputy Joseph Hall was dispatched to a residence “in reference to a juvenile problem.” Upon arriving at the home, Hall met with Dale Garcia, a Walmart worker who explained that his daughters Haley and Jessica had been arguing over a tablet computer.
Garcia, 42, told Hall that during the argument Haley locked herself in her bedroom. Jessica, Garcia added, then used a knife to pick the lock and gain entry to her sister’s room (where she bounced upon her sibling’s chest).
“Dale said he wanted to use his paddle to discipline Jessica for using the knife,” noted Hall, who added that Garcia “wanted me to stand by while he spanked her with the paddle.”
Hall reported that he agreed to the request, and subsequently “stood by as Dale spanked Jessica 4 times on her buttocks.” He then departed the Garcia residence since “no crime had been committed.” Complete article
Here is the police report filed by the Florida sheriff’s deputy who last week agreed to “stand by” and watch while a father spanked his misbehaving 12-year-old daughter with a paddle.
Last Monday evening, Okeechobee Sheriff’s Office Deputy Joseph Hall was dispatched to a residence “in reference to a juvenile problem.” Upon arriving at the home, Hall met with Dale Garcia, a Walmart worker who explained that his daughters Haley and Jessica had been arguing over a tablet computer.
Garcia, 42, told Hall that during the argument Haley locked herself in her bedroom. Jessica, Garcia added, then used a knife to pick the lock and gain entry to her sister’s room (where she bounced upon her sibling’s chest).
“Dale said he wanted to use his paddle to discipline Jessica for using the knife,” noted Hall, who added that Garcia “wanted me to stand by while he spanked her with the paddle.”
Hall reported that he agreed to the request, and subsequently “stood by as Dale spanked Jessica 4 times on her buttocks.” He then departed the Garcia residence since “no crime had been committed.” Complete article
In a recent article Obama’s Opposition to Corporal Punishment Needs to be Finished by Grassroots I cited John B. King's recent push to eliminate corporal punishment in schools, for some of the same reasons cited here and in another article Killing Kids For Insurance Is Semi-Routine explained child psychologist James Garbarino's recommendation of a home visitor program that has proven to be successful. I first heard of These programs when they were introduced in Massachusetts, in the 1990s, in articles that also explained they proved to be successful in Hawaii, which according to that article was the only place they had enough data to research at that time. At approximately the same time there were other news stories about Community Policing with similar programs that also proved to be successful, including one where police often went to domestic violence cases accompanied by a social worker. These social workers could have been trained to educate the parents in such a situation about alternative methods to discipline their children.
James Garbarino's book also cites additional examples where teachers are trained to consult with social workers when they suspect that a child might be abused and advise the parents to avoid these punitive methods. When possible they try to avoid putting people in jail, instead relying on educational methods, regrettably this isn't the method many police and school system's in the South handle these situation, instead relying on more authoritarian methods that clearly contribute to their higher violent crime rates.
This is another example where they use the same methods to teach children not to use violence that they're trying to prevent, which is counter productive. This officer doesn't seem to understand that this parent might be teaching his daughters to use violence by disciplining them with violence. This is almost certainly because he may have been raided in a similar manner, and he may have been taught in this manner that those without political power are supposed to obey authority figures without question. The misbehaving daughter may have learned that the appropriate way to settle her dispute with her sister, and convince her to obey, is the same way her father teaches her to obey.
These child rearing methods started changing shortly after WWII when many modern researchers including in Benjamin Spock began recommending different ways that involved spending more time with kids, often to explain why they shouldn't use violence instead of threatening them with it, and compromising more in some cases when the issues aren't quite as important. Since then several additional researchers have improved on this including Barbara Cooroso author of "Kids Are Worth It" and "The Bully The Bullied and the Bystander" that have proven to be far more successful at raising kids and areas where these improved methods are more common have better educated and less violent people. Regrettably her own home town, Littleton Colorado was reluctant to listen to her and many of the people there seem to have been more inclined to listen to James Dobson who continues to recommend biblical discipline that teaches escalating violence. if this wasn't the case it may have been much less likely that the bullying at Columbine would have been ignored by authorities and this could have made the 1999 Columbine shootings far less likely.
One of the researchers that she cites to explain why corporal punishment isn't the most effective way to teach children is Philip J. Greven author of "Spare the Child" who reviewed Ingraham v. Wright, which resulted from abuses in Florida in the seventies, in this book. Greven explains that most schools that use corporal punishment only use "one or two licks, or sometimes as many as five" most of the time; however at Drew Junior High School, "students were struck many more times and with far more severe injuries." The case that made it to the Supreme Court was because students “were slow in leaving the stage of the school auditorium when asked to do so by a teacher,” and after James Ingraham claimed he was innocent without a trial for such a trivial event, "he was held by two school administrators 'by his arms and legs' and was 'placed … struggling, face down across a table.' The principal 'administered at least twenty licks.'” For additional details and further explanation about other problems with corporal punishment see Philip J. Greven author of "Spare the Child."
A panel from the Appeals court recommended in favor of Ingraham with what Greven and I considered a far better argument than the opposition however the full Appeals Court rejected this argument and when it went to the Supreme Court where they also rejected it on a five to four decision with Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist writing the majority decision against Ingraham. Greven explains how they simply ignored some of the most extreme arguments against corporal punishment and relied on several weaker arguments including tradition and precedent, which is often considered far more important in the court system than rational arguments for their opposition. They ignored that tradition and precedent were also used previously to justify corporal punishment against prisoners and slaves; and this was overturned in these cases since the results were so outrageous.
Philip Greven argues that a major part of the reason Powell and Rehnquist don't empathize with the children being abuse is almost certainly because of how they were raised as a child often using corporal punishment. I don't doubt that this is a major part of the problem but it goes beyond that. This is also part of a control process to help preserve the authority of those in power and keep those from the lower classes from obtaining the education they need to participate in the democratic process and stand up for their rights. A large portion of this wouldn't fit the definition of a conspiracy theory, since it isn't completely secret, therefore it could be confirmed easily with public knowledge, although that is how many mainstream pundits might try to dismiss it. And there are also some details that are done in secret, including some that have been publicly exposed for decades; those portions would fit the definition of a conspiracy theory, although some portions of it have now been proven to be true.
Lewis Powell is also justice that wrote San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez and the author The Powell Memo (at thwink.org) which he wrote, in secret months before being nominated to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon. In addition to the comments by thwink.org Hendrick Smith Who Stole the American Dream? also went into details about how Lewis Powell wrote this memo to many powerful people before he was nominated at the request of the Chamber of Commerce. This memo describes recommendations about how to control propaganda, often in secret for the benefit of the owners of many large corporations. This memo describes how to marginalize people like Ralph Nader and avoid any environmental or worker safety regulations and create think tanks to do a large amount of this work in secret when possible.
This memo was exposed and a large portion of the following efforts continue to be exposed a little at a time although they're reported much more widely in alternative media outlets. There should be little doubt that there is an effort to control the working class and marginalize them.
As I said he also wrote the opinion in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez as described in Jonathan Kozol's book "Savage Inequalities. Jonathan Kozol points out that while the mainstream media routinely remind the public about Brown v. Board of Education where they ruled that segregation was not Constitutional they almost never mention San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez which as Kozol explains almost reverses it in practice. This decision led to an education system where many of the richest students get much more funds for their education than the poorest from tax payers, and often get even more from their own parents, if they don't think it is enough.
It could easily be argued that rich people should have the right to spend extra money on their child education if they can afford it; however it is much more difficult to argue that tax payer money should be used to subsidize the education of the rich at much higher rates than the poor, which is what this decision has allowed.
One of the justifications that Lewis Powell makes is that, "there is no basis on the record in this case for assuming that the poorest people -- defined by reference to any level of absolute impecunity -- are concentrated in the poorest districts." This claim is not only absurd but it is blatantly false; and if he didn't find evidence to refute it clearly it must have been because he didn't want to.
Florida is also where the somewhat notorious reform school, The Dozier School for Boys, is located. Articles about it often refer to it as being widely known however when the mainstream media covers it at all it is covered in articles that the vast majority of the public never read. It is widely known among a segment of the public that makes an effort to learn about these things and a much smaller percentage that happens to watch the right show like Vanity Fair Confidential, or read one of the relatively low profile articles that are usually published in locations that don't reach the vast majority of the public.
This school certainly hasn't gotten nearly as much attention as "Pizzagate" which has been proven repeatedly to be false; and by reporting so widely about this as being "Fake News" many people might get the impression that all these stories about abusing children and even raping them are false; however this isn't even close to the truth. Rape and abuse at many reform schools across the country are much more common than the vast majority of the public realize and it often teaches the children they're allegedly reforming to respond to their problems with violence, although, many of them have quietly been exposed at the local area and partially improved.
When many of the most important stories about how these abusive schools are not widely reported; but alleged "fake news" is widely debunked, without mentioning how often real abuses take place it should be no surprise that a growing number of people start believing in irrational conspiracy theories. Even though it may not take much research to determine that "Pizzagate" is false it also doesn't take much research to determine that many similar stories are true and that only the alternative media that the establishment is trying to portray as propaganda provide it with the coverage it deserves, assuming people look for the best sources, which is often hard to find.
One of the most famous victims of these reform schools is Charles Manson who was badly abused long before he became a cult leader that inspired numerous murders; however when the media cover him they almost never mention that, since it isn't politically correct. It is far more politically correct to act as if many mass murderers became that way because they were "naturally born killers" or so they routinely imply with the coverage that is provided by the media; however this is simply not true and the research from the most rational researchers clearly indicates that abused children are far more likely to turn out to be violent adults.
If more people understood this then we could do far more to further reduce violence.
Georgia is also one of the largest states that still use corporal punishment and it also climber into the top ten for murder rates in 2014, which is usually dominated by smaller states that don't have as diverse a population and have high rates of violence. They also had their share of problems with this including the following article about an outraged parent over a video of a teacher hitting a five year old child with a wooden paddle:
Georgia School Paddling Case Highlights Continued Use of Corporal Punishment 04/15/2016
A Georgia mother's outrage-inducing video of a school principal paddling her 5-year-old son sheds light on America's enduring — but slowly fading — affinity for corporal punishment.
A majority of parents say they approve of spanking kids, although their numbers are declining, public opinion polls show. Most states have banned it at school. And yet 19 states, primarily in the South and West, still allow it: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.
Students in those states received corporal punishment 166,807 times in the 2011-2012 school year, according to the most recent federal data available. That's an average of more than 900 times each school day.
That level of frequency seems to contradict a wide body of social science research on the negative impact of slapping, spanking or paddling a child. Some argue that spanking can help drive down a child's IQ or ability to learn. Others say it triggers more aggressiveness. And child welfare advocates warn that corporal punishment — along with harsh but non-physical discipline — is often applied disproportionately to students with disabilities and those who are black, raising the chances that they will fall behind in school. ....
Corporal punishment's strong support in the South seems to be rooted in a number of cultural factors, including a strict interpretation of the Bible, a conservative approach to law and order, and the legacy of using of violence to control people, as in slavery, said David Finkelhor, who heads the Crimes against Children Research Center and Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire.
At the same time, spanking has disproportionate support among blacks, which, scholars say, reflects in part parents' concerns that they need to keep their children in line at home to protect them from the possibility of violence outside of it. In some black households, corporal punishment is considered morally superior to sparing it.
More than three-dozen countries have banned corporal punishment, part of the spread of human rights advocacy in recent decades. That makes America something of an outlier. .....
"What I've noticed is if you have science that says don't do this but if your personal beliefs, religious beliefs, what your parents taught you is the opposite, a lot of people will go with the opposite rather than the science," Greydanus said. Complete article
A Georgia mother's outrage-inducing video of a school principal paddling her 5-year-old son sheds light on America's enduring — but slowly fading — affinity for corporal punishment.
A majority of parents say they approve of spanking kids, although their numbers are declining, public opinion polls show. Most states have banned it at school. And yet 19 states, primarily in the South and West, still allow it: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.
Students in those states received corporal punishment 166,807 times in the 2011-2012 school year, according to the most recent federal data available. That's an average of more than 900 times each school day.
That level of frequency seems to contradict a wide body of social science research on the negative impact of slapping, spanking or paddling a child. Some argue that spanking can help drive down a child's IQ or ability to learn. Others say it triggers more aggressiveness. And child welfare advocates warn that corporal punishment — along with harsh but non-physical discipline — is often applied disproportionately to students with disabilities and those who are black, raising the chances that they will fall behind in school. ....
Corporal punishment's strong support in the South seems to be rooted in a number of cultural factors, including a strict interpretation of the Bible, a conservative approach to law and order, and the legacy of using of violence to control people, as in slavery, said David Finkelhor, who heads the Crimes against Children Research Center and Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire.
At the same time, spanking has disproportionate support among blacks, which, scholars say, reflects in part parents' concerns that they need to keep their children in line at home to protect them from the possibility of violence outside of it. In some black households, corporal punishment is considered morally superior to sparing it.
More than three-dozen countries have banned corporal punishment, part of the spread of human rights advocacy in recent decades. That makes America something of an outlier. .....
"What I've noticed is if you have science that says don't do this but if your personal beliefs, religious beliefs, what your parents taught you is the opposite, a lot of people will go with the opposite rather than the science," Greydanus said. Complete article
One of the teachers cited above was charged with murder when his paddling of a small child went to extremes. Advocates for corporal punishment will no doubt say this isn't what they recommend and it, certainly isn't what James Dobson puts in writing and he even speaks against taking it to this extreme; however in practice it tends to escalate and this is the inevitable result on some occasions even if it isn't what advocates like James Dobson recommends.
The recommendations of child rearing experts like James Garbarino or Barbara Coloroso are far more effective; they don't teach children to resolve their problems with violence; and they're less likely to backfire with unintended consequences. If minorities or poorer people were more aware of these recommendations it is highly unlikely that they would continue to support corporal punishment as much, if at all.
There are some statistics that indicate that far more minorities are likely to use corporal punishment on their children and in the schools that use corporal punishment lower income people are more likely to be subject to it. Part of the reason for this is that some of the strongest support for corporal punishment is in the South. This may well be part of the reason why they're lower income in the first place. The heavy use of corporal punishment has proven to impair development of critical thinking skills. However even within the same states in most cases lower income people are more likely to live in areas where it is allowed in schools and this is especially true for blacks.
It is also where the military is more likely to recruit from, although they may not fully understand why they have more recruits from the South.
This almost certainly goes back before the Civil War where the people in the South used violence to control their slaves and to intimidate and control anyone that challenged their beliefs. They also continue to have higher prison populations and rely more heavily on prison labor which the wealthy profit from.
The South has relied far more heavily on prison labor shifting a large portion of legalized slavery to the prison system after the Civil War and except for a relatively small number of obscure articles this isn't being reported to the public to this day.
Slavery is still alive and well in the Southern Prisons but most people don't even know it. This isn't fringe conspiracy theory even a handful of mainstream media outlets like an Atlantic article listed below report on it occasionally, but not often enough to draw much attention.
Legally, at least, the prisoners are supposed to be protected from the use of corporal punishment; however the same can't be said for children attending many southern schools. Children aren't protected from corporal punishment, especially poor children, which might cause psychological problems and make them more violent later in life, possibly more inclined to turn to crime; then once they get convicted they start getting protection from corporal punishment but are no longer protected from potential slave labor. This is a blatant example of how the school to prison pipeline works and the wealthy people that make policy decisions profit off the labor obtained through prison labor or private prisons in many cases.
This is more insidious than a conspiracy since they've successfully kept the vast majority of the public distracted and little or noting is being done to change it.
Corporal Punishment also leads to more paranoia support for war even if it is based on lies, support for torture even when the evidence overwhelmingly shows it doesn't work, an amazing double standard that prevents them from understanding that when we bomb innocent people in foreign countries they don't like it anymore than we do, and credulous voting patterns as I explained in Bernie Sanders Wins Least Violent States. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton did much better in the South were many voters were much more inclined to respond to emotional appeals, although in the General Election Trump wound up beating Hillary Clinton easily.
The leaks from the DNC and Podesta clearly indicated that the political establishment understood that they could get their favorite candidates to win much more easily in the South, which is why they front loaded Southern states to give a "pied piper" candidate that they thought Hillary could easily beat and beat Sanders in the primaries. It worked well when it came to giving Hillary Clinton a much bigger advantage although they still had to rely on fraud in at least eighteen states. However when she relied on primary victories in states that she knew she couldn't do nearly as well in the General Election it turned out to be a disaster waiting to happen.
Donald Trump was able to win their primarily because an enormous amount of people never developed critical thinking skills that enabled them to see through his scams; the same went for Clinton in the primaries. This was an example of massive manipulation and many of the political operatives understood that they could more easily manipulate people that were raised in dysfunctional homes and more inclined to make their decisions based on emotions without recognizing that neither Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump ever even did a good job pretending that they cared about looking out for the best interests of the public.
This is also a major reason why many Trump supporters support his position on torture; they were desensitized to it when they were raised in an authoritarian manner that often involved harsh use of corporal punishment which many of them are still not fully dealing with.
They often get abused by those that they were dependent on as a child when they were developing long term behavior patterns and it leads to a lot of long term anger and inability to recognize the true roots of their problems often blaming anyone but the people that abused them and vainly looking to their abusers for solutions. They see Trump as similar to a father figure and when entire groups of people fall for a demagogue they fit in with the crowd as long as they go along with the beliefs chosen by their leaders, however irrational they are.
Think about it; is Trump even coming remotely close to pulling a good scam? He came from the Casino business which is all fraud, conducted more fraud with Trump University and got caught with one scam after another. Hillary Clinton was constantly being caught at one scam after another; yet an enormous number of people accepted these two incredibly bad candidat4es as the leading choices because they were the only ones that the media presented as "viable" candidates and gave them obsessive coverage.
As much as I hate to say it many children never developed the critical thinking skills they need to participate in the Democratic system because of early childhood education that often suppresses critical thinking skills instead of developing them. One of the most important ways to change this is to stop abusing them and educate the public about how much damage ealy abuse does.
For some sources and additional details see the following articles:
In Final Report, Experts Identify Remains At Notorious Reform School 01/21/2016
Official White House Boys Organization
The White House Boys-An American Tragedy by Roger Dean Kiser
Springtown Texas expands sanctioned child abuse AKA corporal punishment 09/27/2012
Escalating use of corporal punishment often leads to more widely accepting of hazing as well in military or police academies. This teaches cadets and police officers to control the situation but it also has negative consequences; when you google "Police Officer" or "Sheriff's Deputy arrested for child abuse," it routinely turns up plenty of examples. It shouldn't be surprising when a large number of police officers or veterans become violent or develop sexual fetishes like the following officer who also happens to be from Florida:
Investigators: Polk deputy tied naked children to desk, beat them with paddle 05/26/2011 A Polk County sheriff's deputy filmed herself strapping naked children to a desk and spanking them with sex toys, then sent the videos to a boyfriend she met on a fetish website, investigators said.
On Thursday, 45-year-old Robin Leigh Pagoria was charged with aggravated child abuse, production of child pornography, promotion of child pornography and possession of child pornography.
Punishment rates for blacks nearly double those for whites 08/26/2016 For example, low-income students in Tennessee are 1.38 times more likely to attend a school that uses corporal punishment when compared to higher-income students. The same pattern holds in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
Researchers: African-Americans most likely to use physical punishment 11/10/2011
Corporal Punishment and Low-income Mothers by Lorelei Mitchell
Penal labor in the United States
The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery? 08/28/2016
The Atlantic: American Slavery, Reinvented The Thirteenth Amendment forbade slavery and involuntary servitude, “except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” 09/21/2015
