I think I've figured out Trumpsters

[nuxvomica]

Trump voters live in an eternal twilight of childhood. They believe the most fanciful things, unconvinced by the reasoning they never practiced or needed because the fairy tales told them by their political daddies are sufficient to make them feel safe, but only if daddy is still around. And so they are impervious to logical arguments and drawn to surreal morality tales like Pizzagate and Qanon. Note how Trump speaks to them, alternating between a gruffness pantomiming strength and the kind of airy falsetto that babies and cats find comforting. Mitch McConnell is always using the phony gruff voice, speaking in a lower register than is natural for him, like a parent getting serious about telling you to clean up your room. This is why, I think, we don't understand them and we are flummoxed by their continued loyalty to such obviously corrupt and incompetent leaders. We are trying to reason with them like adults: Democratic presidents create better economies, handle pandemics better, even see lower abortion rates, and obey the law. But none of these facts matter. They may possibly behave like adults in other aspects of their lives but in politics they are children.

Watch how they react to this election.

[Sedona]

1. K&R

Clearly you've met my Floridian mother & sister

[nuxvomica]

12. I have a relative who despises Fauci

In the same conversation, she says Fauci created the virus as a bio-weapon and that she shouldn't have to wear a mask because it's not dangerous. So it's a bio-weapon that's not dangerous? Fairy tales, like dreams, don't need to make sense.

[sagesnow]

2. Were they all Home-Schooled?

Can they spell Democracy?

[scarytomcat]

3. we will see

I hold little to no hope for the right to see the error of racism and trickle down

[ornotna]

4. If not childlike

They're certainly simpletons. Yes, I know it's one of their laments that we don't take them seriously. But when you believe the nutty stuff they do it really is hard to.

[nuxvomica]

8. I remember a nun in grade school telling us to be "childlike", not "childish"

I think Trumpsters are the latter.

[volstork]

43. Agree.

Being "childlike" is often something to aspire to-- seeing the world with fresh eyes, being open to possibility.

Being "childish" is another thing altogether.

They don't pay attention to their own scripture: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became an adult, I put away childish things."

[nuxvomica]

45. Thank you

I was trying to figure out how to fit in that very quote, from Corinthians, I think.

[volstork]

56. Indeed

I Corinthians 13:11

[BootinUp]

6. One of the things that changed in the last 30 years

and is a factor in our current dilemma, is the loss of a serious foreign threat in the USSR. That threat was glue for certain political alliances. It required cooperation between the two major parties.

[empedocles]

7. . . . or at least until putin bought traitortrump

[KY_EnviroGuy]

25. One would think coronavirus would have provided that same glue......

but sadly, no. That tells us the brainwashing and cult formation is 100% complete.

I'm not convinced even a world war or second Great Depression would bring them to humility.

Our nation is in a very dangerous state of division.

[The Magistrate]

28. Not Only Cooperation, Sir --- It Required Sanity In Some Measure

Facing real danger, powerful opposition, requires being aware of what actually is.

It is a point Orwell makes in one of the colloquies in 1984. For political purposes, the Party may say two plus two is five, but when designing an anti-tank gun, two and two must still make four.

Remove real danger, the mind can be allowed to become a cabinet of curiousities, without much risk to life and limb.

[BootinUp]

29. I'm trying to make sense of this new information we are watching

I was definitely surprised its so close. I am telling myself the final margin will look better. But it seems we are fighting an immense problem that is not yielding much to some mighty blows.

[jaxexpat]

46. Worthy to note is that the disfunctional bilateralism between the US and the USSR blossomed....

just as the US ended it's long romance with Roosevelt-ism. That stabilizing influence was soon replaced with what we used to call "detant", thus naming the lipstick on the Military Industrial Complex pig. Much as you say, in the vacuum created by the USSR's disarray, the US, other than to adopt new profit centers, has failed to adjust. Rather, abandoning the blessings of memory and refusing to war against injustice and misery which is the "easy path", those who labor, wielding the profits of detant, choose to pick society's scabs, aggravating the diverse sectors until all are simply spoiling for a civil war. What a sick lot of fools. Apparently money is the root of evil, after all.

[bdamomma]

9. tRump

is a child himself, all his life he has been stealing, lying and cheating. That is his MO. A true wanna be.

[backroadblast]

10. i agree completely

i refer to fox "news" as "happy talk news time" to my RW coworkers, just because it's a bunch of reaffirming propaganda for them.

[The Wizard]

11. 24 years of

Pox News brain poisoning has been quite effective at creating a class of whining professional victims. Trump speaks to them with a 5th grade vocabulary in base terms. There is only black and white, no gray areas. Trump keeps it simple, "I'm the only one who can fix it." And that's all the cult hears. We're dealing with people who are the "poorly educated" Trump exploits. Simple answers work for simple minds. Thinking is work without monetary compensation for the uneducated, and they can't process that concept. A formal education means hard work without immediate gratification. It's a concept that is alien to the Trump cult. These are people who believe every word uttered by Dear Leader.
Years of undermining the working class has done damage that can only be remedied by living wage jobs for the majority.
When the minimum wage was first enacted in 1938 it was a living wage, and it helped expand a thriving middle class. Now to stay above water it takes two full time minimum wage jobs, thus lowering living standards for the unwashed masses Pox News and Trump exploit.

[Hugin]

16. +1

A very serious and complex problem.

[nuxvomica]

18. All true, yet I also know well-educated Trumpsters

They can have reasoned discourse on a number of topics, but when it comes to politics they have chosen to remain infantile. It's maddening.

[The Wizard]

19. Educated or trained?

There's a difference.

[nuxvomica]

26. One in particular I'm thinking of is an accountant

He just retired from high-level management position in state government. In other words, point taken.

[NoRoadUntravelled]

38. Yes. Definitely a difference between the two. nt

[wnylib]

40. Intelligent people can make very dumb

and foolish decisions, based on emotions and psychology. If their lives have included experiences that have conditioned their emotional and psychological growth, their intelligence will be driven by psycholology and emotions rather than reason.

There are smart people in prisons. Therapists could describe brilliant people with serious emotional issues.

You cannot win over Magas with reason, although you can sometimes ask them thoughtful questions that help them sort their emotions and reason so that they can reflect on what they believe. You can skip the reasoned arguments and directly address their feelings with a probing question on what they feel.

Just don't approach them with reason and expect a reasoned response.

[Richard58]

51. I have a friend who is like that.

While I honestly believe that most Trumpers are simple-minded, racists who lack critical thinking skills I know there are some who are smart. My friend "John" for instance. He has an MBA, is smart as a whip & runs a successful business. But yet he loves Trump and thinks Trump can do no wrong! We have argued over this and I don't understand how a bright guy like him can't see Trump for who he is. It's like he is super smart when it comes to most things but when it comes to politics he is no different than a slack-jawed, backwoods redneck spewing Fox talking points. I find it bizarre.

[treestar]

31. I was wondering when Rush dies

there may be no bloviator to take his place as effectively. Dotard is like Rush as a candidate. Right wing talk radio will still exist, but will it have as effective a mouthpiece?

And Fox - how long can it keep up the charade? I think I had read that its ratings have been falling.

[CentralMass]

34. There a plenty of assholes out there to occupy his chair.

[treestar]

44. Sure, but will they have the same talent?

And keep the ears attuned as well?

Similar to Dotard - he has the "talent" to inspire. To a greater extent that others, like Bush or Nixon.

[RicROC]

13. American TV

I'm wondering if American TV is a key. Not in the sense that AmericanTV is bad but rather, that it is so good-with many options. This leads to people watching the fantasy world of TV and incorporating this fantasy view into their own life, altering their Weltanschauung (great German word meaning the way they look at the world)

The reason I say this is that I've seen European TV and it's not good. Quite boring in comparison, such that Europeans are not glued to TV like Americans are. To them, it's a distraction for watching sports and news, but not as a pacifier turned on for hours at a time. Therefore, they spend more time outside. They spend more time creating their own lives instead of blending TV into their lives.

I recall when my brother was divorced, causing anxiety for my mother. She wanted to host a party but didn't know who to invite (her son vs. her now ex-daughter-in-law whom she liked). I believe her anxiety was caused by how she viewed TV's hostile handling of relationships post-divorce. In the end, she realized, she wasn't the one who got divorced and therefore, was not her problem. She ended up inviting both her son and the ex-daughter-in-law to the party, and let them know the other was invited. She let them decide who they would handle their own behavior when/if they attended the party.
(In an aside, years later when my mother was in intensive care following a horrible automobile accident, the former daughter-in-law immediately came to the hospital and stayed until midnight.)

[Hugin]

17. "Weltanschauung"

I'll definitely be adding that word along with schadenfreude to my list of German words to use when nothing else will do.

[RicROC]

24. Schadenfreude

Oh yes, Schadenfreude is a great word, too.

Angst (pronounced ahngst)= anxiety is a word I use a lot.

Ersatz (pronounced air-zahtz)= substitute is for me a common word. For example, a bald man constantly wearing a baseball cap wears it as an ersatz toupee.

All German nouns are capitalized which adds emphasis when inserted into English prose.

[Peccadillo]

36. For example, a bald man constantly wearing a baseball cap wears it as an ersatz toupee.

I resemble that remark.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

21. So many Americans believe what they WANT to believe.

The evangelical Christians gave Trump their overwhelming support yet again, and they comprised about 42% of all the white voters! That's higher than their percentage among white people in the USA, so they were clearly motivated and more likely to vote than other groups.

Sorry to the religious who have convinced themselves otherwise, but they ARE believing what they WANT to believe.

Same goes for the gung-ho Americans who believe that the USA is the greatest country in the history of mankind, almost devoid of faults. And who get upset when this country's shortcomings are pointed out to them.

Same goes for the racists who want to believe their skin color makes them superior.

They are indeed living in a fantasy world, and they're encouraged by right-wing propagandists such as Fox News. In fact, those propagandists often give them PRAISE for watching and agreeing with them. Normal news networks are generally less engaging and just report the news.

Edit: After awhile, they will brainwash themselves that what they WANT in this world is indeed reality.

[The Magistrate]

30. I Would Add One Thing, Sir

If you take a look at one of the 're-run channels' that broadcast old television shows, from fifty or sixty years ago, you will see much that reminds you of 'conservative' political attitudes today. The popular entertainments of childhood play a greater role in adult thought than is often appreciated, and I expect this grows in intensity with age, for a sort of nostalgia creeps into the mind then, in which what reminds one of being young comes to the surface.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

14. They're the same people who love this crap.

Funny that this movie was released in 1970 during the Vietnam conflict.

A Democrat might win more of their votes if he's a shirtless man trying to act macho, like Putin. Or a Mussolini-type.

[The Wizard]

20. Patton was a brilliant military tactician

with serious flaws.

[uponit7771]

15. THIS 👉🏾👉🏾👉🏾 "They believe the most fanciful things," 👈🏾👈🏾👈🏾 !! Is my #1 experience with

... Trump supporters is they are politically empty so their gullibility is sky high.

[The Wizard]

22. I once posted a rumor on FB

saying Obama issued an executive order removing the word gullible from the dictionary. A certain element, with knickers in a wad, believed it.

[uponit7771]

32. +1, yep ... They don't know about government so they believe the dumbest crap

[Hugin]

27. I would say it goes well beyond politically empty.

Some years ago, I heard Janeane Garofalo discussing this same group. It was early in the current upsurge, so it was before 2008. She said and I agreed that these people lack self-awareness and have never practiced any sort of self-introspection of their thoughts or beliefs. Which, is a classic symptom of cult life or brainwashing.

I have more than a few of these cultists I have to interact with pretty constantly and closely on a daily basis. I do it, because, I have no choice. It's part of my job. However, I do have a test to determine, if it's going to be more of a relationship than mere direction of work. Because, quite frankly, I get lonely for some interaction. I test some of their beliefs by asking simple questions. If I'm greeted with a blank look or a reply showing no depth of thought on the topic, I give up. I've learned this is a choice to be a hollow shell. I don't know if it's intellectual laziness or what, but, I've learned they simply don't want to put in the effort to self-examine. Maybe, the cognitive dissonance is too deep for them to grapple with using the weak tools they've been given.

The others (I'd say it may be about 20% or less of them) who give me some indication that they've built their beliefs on some sort of intellectual scaffolding, I will interact and talk. Even though, some of the cognitive mazes I encounter are astounding. Most of these people's thoughts are structured, if bizarre. I think it's this group who are the CT generators and hilariously the thought leaders of the hive.

[lindysalsagal]

52. I find your words convincing. I think fear is a major factor: They are fear carriers: Insecure, conf

confused, unable to think clearly about much at all. If The rest of us were a library, they're the mcdonald's picture menu: They need to simplify the world until it fits into their own limited map of reality. Everything else is a source of fear, and they'll jump off a bridge rather than actually examine those fears and the sources of them.

Authoritarians make these fearful perpetual-children feel safer. A big ugly bully seems like a good choice to them, as long as he vocalizes a few of their shared values. Add to that economic insecurity and the ability to "watch" coastal elites enjoy "the good life" and you can see where the communal resentment is inevitable.

frump sings their song, and so they pile on. To them, he's not any more chaotic than the regular world already is from their point of view. Having a black city man as a president was tremendously frightening to them. Gays and atheists terrify them, because they are outside their "happy meal" menu of choices.

[Hugin]

54. It's nice to read some confirmation of my take...

The only addition I have to what you said is on this piece.

"... the ability to 'watch' coastal elites enjoy 'the good life'..."

There was, ironically, an exit poll which indicated there was a group of around 20% of the respondents who believed that they either were in or would soon be in the top 1%. I remember thinking probably none of these people actually had that status. In some anecdotal research I've done lately on some of my associates who are Trump cultists shows that like him, their lives are a series of catastrophic failures. In substance abuse, marriage, bankruptcy, and you name it. I really think they project onto Trump an ideal that if he's succeeded so can they if he and his behavior are emulated by them. Never mind he's not in any way a success in reality. He says he is and they can't see through the hubris. Like Peter Pan, they want to believe.

[lindysalsagal]

55. Even if they won't ever have money, they emotionally identify with this guy who appears to have it

and that is some kind of temporary solace: "I'm JUST like the big guy with the big money." "The big guy with the big money likes me!"

Which is exactly how 45 patronizes them.

[Hugin]

57. The most disturbing part of my research is...

As I said, these people have experienced a series of catastrophic life failures. They are mostly white and male or their consorts.

Minority people whom I've looked at, if they were lucky enough to even achieve one failure of the scale of the previous group never recovered enough to have another. For the most part they were not even given the opportunity to fail on their own. They were pre-failed by those who hand out the opportunity.

This tells me the first group is coasting along on privilege. Credit extended to them based on who they are and nothing else. Prejudice writ large.

This makes me very sad. I like to enable excellence.

[lindysalsagal]

58. The system, especially criminal justice, and the lack of recovery institutions traps

the unfortunate underprivileged in cycles of loss. Some of it is impossible to repair.

[Yeehah]

23. I stopped trying to figure it out a long time ago

and just accepted the fact there are a lot of stupid, easily manipulated people in the world.

[ecstatic]

33. Lol! Interesting info about cats. Nt

[vlyons]

35. I see them from a Buddhist perspective

Buddhist psychology helps me to see them. Their minds are filled with delusions that are fueled by 1) greed for more wealth, power and position; 2) Envy towards those with more wealth, power and position; 3) anger and hatred towards blacks and Hispanics, whom they fear get more and undeserved wealth, power, and position; 4) arrogant pride that they are right and everyone else is wrong and therefore an enemy. They are incredibly selfish.

[nuxvomica]

41. That is why I used the term "twilight"

They see the world darkening because they are so burdened by their insatiable desires and fail to progress to the next level of maturity. As we shift from childhood to adulthood, I think we discover how unsafe the world is and how much suffering others endure. The hero/adult discovers this reluctantly but finds the strength to answer the call to transform the world, to make it a safer place for others. To me, that is how we ultimately find our bliss in our politics. Just making our own lives safer and more comfortable through wealth doesn't cut it.

Thank you for that perspective.

[bucolic_frolic]

37. Fast, get an editor and start writing

If you can explain what psychologists can't, you have a bestseller

[Roy Rolling]

39. Children?

Children can be controlled. These are people at the wheel of a bus, driving blindfolded while listening to the directions from Rush Limbaugh on their headphones.

But yeah, spot on analysis. Trump’s kitty cat voice act is stale, but deplorables still eat it up so why change? Remember, people will watch any shit on TV and be entertained in 2020.

The Trump soap opera is a show to them, it’s not reality because they ain’t black, been shot at, arrested, or caught Covid-19.

Yet. Except the black part. They can’t change that. As long as they support Trump they’ll be “white trash”.

[Botany]

42. "This is why, I think, we don't understand them and their continued loyalty to such obviously ...

... corrupt and incompetent leaders."

Trump has given them the go ahead to use the n****r word.

[kimbutgar]

47. His supporters are children who were not cherished and crave adoration and love

In a weird way mf45 gives them the familiar type of love they had as children. I think of the video I saw of Don jr trying to hug his dad and mf45 shrugged him off. They also had bully parents and they grew into bullies in adulthood and lookup to their cult bully as their hero. Put everybody down feels good to them.

Ironically every mf45 supporter I have ever met said they had difficult childhoods.

[yaesu]

48. CNN was talking about tRump trying to rule from Mar-a-Lago, ruling his 65 mil cult members

I'm sure they would love to keep the circus going but they did not mention how hard it would be to rule from prison.

[JHB]

49. I have a shorter name for it: Woim Syndrome

Named for the toady to Butch the Bully in the old Little Rascals/Our Gang films.

The type that crowds around and cheers "Yeah, get him!"

They get a vicarious thrill at seeing power wielded, especially against anyone who they don't like. As long as the target is not them. Part of their enthusiasm comes from knowing that as long as someone else is the target, it won't be them.

[nuxvomica]

50. There's that too.

I get it.

[roamer65]

53. They are fascist sheep.

[Rhiannon12866]

59. K&R! Well said!

Their reaction is like that of a toddler having a tantrum, no reasoning with a kid that young, they just kick and yell and scream if they don't get their way whether what they want makes sense or not.

[Rhiannon12866]

60. And here's the perfect example!

Link to tweet

[nuxvomica]

61. LOL

And the news anchors would say, "He finally appears Presidential".

[Rhiannon12866]

62. Are you quoting FOX News??