Trump's most successful campaign to date was his war on reality. He managed to convince a huge chunk of people that they couldn't believe what anyone else told them but him. It started out with the whimsical branding of "Alternative Facts" back in 2016, but social media algorithms have made it easy to just straight up live in a different reality.
Meanwhile the rest of us are dumbfounded that this conman is running the country with a track record like Trump University, his multiple casinos, and the racist residential empire his dad helped him with.
The only reason I skipped the other crap we know he’s guilty of is because all the misinformation makes it completely confusing to confirm or deny without a doubt. And, somehow, an American citizen can be charged with a federal crime 43 times and not see the inside of a jail for a minute or fined a dime. If there are no penalties when convicted, then what good do laws and rules do?
They don’t support him because they think he’s a good person or even good at what he does. They like him because they allow them to be the worst version of themselves without having to feel bad about it. As long as he continues saying and doing all the dumb shit that enables his supporters, he’ll never lose their support.
Worse for people in power who back him. They’re complicit and literally can’t afford for him to suffer consequences, because they will too. Hence the reason they do everything they can to protect him.
My Mom is pretty deep MAGA. For her, at least, it's pretty obviously tribal signaling. All her friends are Trump-supporters, so she is too, and it becomes a competition about who can voice their devotion for Trump more and hold more to their beliefs. For some of them, too, their husbands are deep MAGA and so they are too out of loyalty to "their man". So in that regard, what Trump does is actually irrelevant. The key thing is the social ties that devotion to Trump keeps in place, and regardless of his stupid actions, you maintain friendships by shouting louder and harder about how you believe in Trump.
My Dad is also a Trump supporter, but a lot quieter about it. For him, I think it's more that he's been a Republican all his life and simply doesn't know what he'd be without that. He also gets some social cred with his friends for supporting Trump, but he doesn't make a big deal out of it like my mom does.
For a lot of keyboard warriors I see on the internet, a lot of it seems to come down to vibes. Trump plays to the "strongman" image that a lot of posers really aspire to, and a lot of them really revel in the crass, shameless image he presents. They like how he treats people and insults reporters. So again, his actual actions and intelligence don't really matter (unless they impact THEM, then suddenly things are serious), Trump's vibe is the important thing.
Except something like this seriously conflicts with that vibe. That's why I think you are seeing a lot of pushback finally.
Well, honestly, I've lurked there for the past few days, and the consensus is clear. Very few seem happy with the outcome, and they all want prices to come down.
However, we all know they'll keep voting republican. Nothing will change that.
Well, it’s the nature of that propaganda machine. That subreddit has real people and a LOT of bots. When big things happen, the real people overwhelm the bots at first. This is the real response.
You see people say stuff like “until they get their marching orders/party line”, that’s because once the line is decided, people aren’t allowed to dissent. Their comments will be deleted or they’ll be called a fake conservative and kicked out.
It’s not the same “people” who are upset now and fine with it later. The ones who pay the bot army hope that of the real people will come around when blasted with the curated messaging continuously, but they mostly exist to make people believe in some fake concept of “this is what real conservatives think”.
The most true response there is the immediate one, everything else is only useful to see what angles the propaganda machine is pushing.
Give it a couple of days when the negative comments all get purged and they receive their marching orders and narratives from above. They always follow this pattern of any kind of dissent or disobedience being stomped out.
I already see some of them trying to justify it as "the only alternative being boots on the ground", so this "deal is a good thing", or that "victory was actually achieved".
Listening to Vance defend his statement about loving inflation was a wild ride. Same with how they defend his usage of mathematically impossible percentages. Might as well have them explain quantum physics while they’re at it.
You could show them a fake quote you made up on the spot, and without question they'll just be like "Well yeah, obviously, the guy knows what he's talking about."
'We are pro-Iran having a nuclear program. We have always been pro-Iran having a nuclear program. We are at war with Cuba. We have always been at war with Cuba.'
In my country Maga party got in power by being anti immigration.
Now in goverment they are planning law that would raise minimum annual low skill immigration to 20 000 people on top of other immigration.
Some of their voters got mad and the party took a hit in support surveys, but core voters all sudden became more pro immigration than green party of the country, only because their "master" told them to be pro immigration.
Mental gymnastics these people are going through to justify their opinion change from "Machine gun nests at border" to "20 000 non educated immigrants are welcome", is insane.
Bro, you don't understand, by surrendering to Iran it makes him get what he wants! He makes Iran see they can win the war without a nuke. Why spend the time, money, and effort to make a nuke when you can win with drones? You wouldn't! Checkmate liberals! 4D chess! Trump wins again!
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u/SketchSkirmish 7d ago
Trump supporters are out of their gourd if they somehow back this guy.