Why won't Trump supporters admit they've been conned?

[Zorro]

Opinion by Helaine Olen

When I speak with President Trump’s supporters, I hear the same things over and over again. He wants to help Americans — he really does — but he has been stopped. He’s trying to drain the swamp, as he promised during the 2016 campaign, it’s that “they” — Democrats, Republicans, his own staff and, now, for an increasing number of conspiracy-minded Americans, the “deep state” — won’t let him do it. They block him, getting in the way at every turn.

This is transparent garbage, and not simply because I know of no workplace outside of television where the top dog is constantly stymied by underlings and dark plots. It’s because both Trump and his Republican enablers are quite competent and capable of action when it comes to serving their own needs, and those of the most monied Americans.

From almost the beginning of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, it has been clear that while many Americans were going to suffer economic losses, one rather small group would do just fine: the wealthiest Americans. The economy is “strong,” as Trump said at NBC’s Town Hall Thursday night — strong, that is, if you are a member of this lucky cohort. Even as tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs — almost another 900,000 in the past week alone — and lines at food banks stretched for miles, big-money interests barely felt a thing.

Trump, for all his protestations to the contrary, remains uninterested in the plight of the less-than-well-off. Sure, he says he wants a “big” deal on the stimulus and that it’s his treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, who “hasn’t come home with the bacon” and made it happen. Please. If Trump were serious, the person he would call out isn’t Mnuchin or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has refused to commit to putting a White House + House Democrats deal, should one be reached, up for a vote on the floor of the Senate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/16/why-wont-trump-supporters-admit-theyve-been-conned/

[SheltieLover]

1. They see themselves as extensions of "it"

Illogical, I know...

[C_U_L8R]

2. That's the conman's secret weapon.

No one likes to admit they've been conned.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

3. Because

Narcissists can never admit they made a mistake or were wrong.

[canuckledragger]

9. You beat me to that statement.

They refuse to admit they were wrong and ALWAYS blame a scapegoat for their failures!

[d_r]

4. You should read John Dean's book

It helped me to understand this. I thought it was because of cognitive dissonance and not wanting to lose face - no one wants to admit they are a sucker so they double down to rationalize it.

But Dean and Altemeyer extend upon that. I don't know if I can do it justice, but their point is that in addition to this cognitive dissonance, one group of people who are loyal trump followers are authoritarian followers. This group of people is very vulnerable to being conned - religious charletons have recognized this for a long time. Because the authoritarian followers isolate themselves from other points of view, they are easily suckered by con men who tell them that they are right and reaffirm those views. They are quick to welcome in someone who acts like he agrees with them because it supports their view of self. Con men recognize this and use it to sucker them. And because they have such compartmentalized thinking and are likely to reject evidence that violates their views, they simply become suckers.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-positivity/202009/john-deans-authoritarian-nightmare

[BigmanPigman]

8. That is the best damn article that explains it perfectly!

I know I wrote this before but it deserves repeating.

***Read it if you haven't yet...well worth it!

[Skittles]

5. think of how stupid you'd have to be, to be fooled by that buffoon

maybe they don't have the critical thinking skills to be aware they were conned

[SWBTATTReg]

6. People don't like to admit that they were conned or fooled. We just need to need to forgive and...

move on, but that reflects more of a democratic flavor to the forgiving and not that of the republican creed, which is to never admit wrongdoing, a trump characteristic (an idiotic trait if you ask me). Bills don't get written or passed in Congress with this kind of attitude (my way or the highway), and this is going to be one of the primary reasons why republicans are going to suffer across the entire spectrum of the political arena. People see the voting record of their republican reps and they see that one of the main bills passed by these thugs was the 2017 tax cut bill, where 83% of the tax cuts went to their donors. Nobody else.

[JaneQPublic]

7. Quote often attributed to Mark Twain

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."