A good take on why Trumpkins don’t hear what the rest of us hear when President Trump spews incoherent word salad.
Also why I have limited interest in, or energy for, trying to persuade them through rational debate.
I have been baffled by this all along – I could not for the life of me imagine what his supporters were hearing when they listened to him babble incoherently. He’s like a political Rorschach’s test.
I feel like I’ve had the curtain drawn back.
I realized I do this to him too. I’m always trying to figure out WHAT THE FUCK HE MEANS. Only because I don’t like him and what he stands for, I’m actually trying to parse reality from it, so it strikes me as insane.
But if I was predisposed to him, my mind would decide on something that filled out my preconceived expectation.
Humans Brains are so fucking weak and wrong.
The thing is that this sort of cultic programming breaks down, eh, “big league,” when the programmed are confronted with things that disrupt their projection onto the leader.
Which is why Trump is excellent at campaigning but the realities of governing elude him (which of course we always knew). He can promise people whatever they want and they will love him for it, but when it comes time to actually deliver upon those promises, he has no idea what the hell he is doing.
And the coal miners of West Virginia are going to be in for a rude awakening when they realize that all the money for their health insurance is instead being spent on building the world’s longest pole vault course along the Mexican border. Nothing like being told “Oh, sorry, black lung treatment is only for the rich people” to make you realize Dear Leader doesn’t give two shits about you.
That’s assuming they place the blame where it belongs and don’t buy some new lie about how it was the Dems who really screwed them.
At this point, I have very little faith that the mass of Trump supporters will ever wake up and realize they’ve been had. When someone projects so much of themselves onto a leader, abandoning that leader is tantamount to abandoning their own sense of self.
More likely they’ll believe whatever lies they’re fed, if only so they never had to admit they brought this on themselves.
Usually people blame the president and the ruling party regardless. I think we need to abhor regarding them as so stupid they will believe anything. They’re so frightened that they want to. Thats something that can turn on a dime.
I don’t see it as stupidity so much as stubbornness and pride. Pride can lead to amazing feats of self-deception, and when it’s coupled by a conservative news engine that exists to facilitate that self-deception, it doesn’t leave me with much hope.
But I’d genuinely like to be wrong.
Yes, pride certainly can–I think you’re right to use that word, but I’d modify a little. I think what we’re seeing is an attachment to pride, and the fear of the loss of that pride, which makes them open to manipulation. Honestly, lots of people would be open to manipulation in that state.
I don’t think there is much, not in a fundamental sense, that makes me all that different from a Trump supporter, except that I’ve got a little voice in my head constantly telling me that I’m wrong to feel pride at all ever because I am a living piece of garbage. If not for that, I wonder if I wouldn’t be open to feeling like I deserve to be promised a place in the world that is above everyone else.
I’ve never been so grateful to be born with a serotonin-mismanaging brain.
I didn’t realize his manner of speaking was intentional; I thought he was just forgetting to include details like a confused grandpa, but now it seems kind of genius
It may also be unintentional. He may indeed be confused and uninformed. But that makes him great at being a cult leader, despite himself.
Snapshots of the New Resistance