Because I am just desperate for one… Specifically to find out how in God’s name they think the things they think or if they really do think the things they say they think that are patently absurd, starting with even the tiniest things like “Trump is a good person”… I just can’t wrap my head around it. I need somebody to explain it to me somebody who has been inside it, who has experienced it who has done whatever voodoo they needed to do on themselves and can describe the mental processes that are at work in their brains when they Believed and said the insane things that people who support Trump and believe that Democrats are evil think and say.
Remember a few years back when Marjorie Taylor Green was filling in for the Speaker of the House? I guess the chamber got a little rowdy, so MTG banged her gavel, crying “Decorum,” and the response she got was laughter from both Republicans and Democrats. It’s something I can’t forget, because it’s one of the few moments in recent years where both parties were in unity, recognizing the ridiculous of someone like MTG demanding decorum from anyone else.
Like you, I have a difficult time wrapping my head around this. A few years ago, in one of the few conversations about politics I’ve had with my MAGA mother, she looked at me with a straight face and said, “Trump has never said anything I consider embarrassing.” She believes the January 6th rioters were invited into the capitol and they were peaceful. A MAGA acquaintance of mine genuinely can’t understand why anyone would think Trump is an authoritarian telling me, “You only think that because the media tells you to think that.”
Back in the good old days, we all generally agreed on the facts. In 1994, nobody of any substance would seriously tell the American people China would pay for tariffs we had on their goods. The American people as a whole would not have accepted such an obvious, naked lie. Nor would we have accepted someone who so frequently lied to us and had so little respect as to not even make them good lies.
The truth is I don’t know how far I can even believe a MAGAt. Do they actually believe Trump? I have my doubts. And when you can’t trust someone to even believe what they’re telling you, it’s hard to have a serious conversation.
I don’t have any personal former MAGA anecdotes. Just about every single Trump supporter I know continues to support him. For a lot of them, I just don’t think there’s any way out for them psychologically. They know Trump lies, that he’s corrupt, and he’s hurting them but to admit that out loud means admitting they were fools. They can’t do that.
OP, do you mean someone on this message board here who can do a former MAGA AMA? I think all our Trumpers are gone by now. The last one I can think of was Tim R Mortiss, and he was banned.
Of the Trumpers/MAGA that I do know (including some in my family), they are quite varied. Relatively few of them actually like Trump as a person. Many feel that Trump is odious and immature, but they argue the Democrats’ support of LGBT, Islam, pedos, illegal immigration, anti-Christian persecution, communism, political correctness, whatever is so pernicious that they have no choice but to go with Trump in order to stop the tide of liberal evil.
The Trumpers I’ve met are so fully stupid as to not even try to explain it.
Also they believe the anti-lib click bait allover social media. That’s shits creeps in and don’t let go. It’s like trying to talk someone out of being severely depressed. Can’t be done.
Also cult followers believe anything they’re fed. Including drinking the full cup of koolaide.
I doubt anyone smart enough to have broken out of the cult would talk outloud about it. Let alone answer questions.
Yeah, I was hoping someone here was a former sufferer of what is the REAL Trump derangement syndrome ( that is being deranged in your thinking by your embrace of Trump) and having experienced a recovery could explain what they went through and what it really was like inside their heads.
cause I’m sure everybody has seen or read of some people who have recovered and who regret that what they did and are sort of like “I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking!” Including one or two people who refused his pardon of them for their January 6 behavior… So they are out there I just wanna talk to one personally.
Well, good luck in that endeavor. Let us know if you come across one willing to chat.
You could check out this Reddit thread. However, as always, a good chunk of the comments are not necessarily ex-MAGA folks themselves, but liberals writing about ex-MAGA folks. Still a very long good list of comments to sift through though.
Like the others, I don’t think you will find anyone here. What I do hope to avoid, at least, is a bunch of non-Trumpers speculating about what they think. All it winds up being is “Trumpers are stupid.” and it doesn’t do anything but feed our own echo chamber.
Agreed. I know what the speculation is, that’s why I want to go to the source and have somebody at the source tell me what the hell is going on. Or was going on.
The thread link to above thank you by the way… It is very good. The first one answer I hit was a very satisfying answer in many ways.
Many MAGAs I know are single-issue idiots, like here in Colorado it is about oil & gas and getting rid of EVs and nothing else Trump does matters to them because it’s only about oil and gas. I assume in other areas the single issue is abortion or immigration or Gaza and everything else is ignored. As such, I don’t see those MAGAs becoming ex-MAGAs.
thank you!
Jesus Christ, the selfishness! The self involvement! It just breaks my heart and floors me.
Counterpoint: all the Trumpers I know personally in the real world are indeed quite stupid.
Counterpoint: Most of the Trumpers I know personally are very smart and educated - just highly, highly, biased, prejudiced, cherry-picking of data, willfully stubborn, and so determined to troll and own others that they’d suffer great harm themselves just to prove a point.
i.e., stupid.
Stupid is as stupid does.
They were stupid, got sucked in the even stupider machine. And now their stupid heads only let them believe stupid shit and stoooopid stuff comes out their stupid pie holes.
Yeah, we realized they’re stupid right from the get go. The derangement they suffer keeps the door locked. You’ll never get in.
If you want to discuss anything with one you have way more patience with the stupid than me.
highly, highly, biased, prejudiced, cherry-picking of data, willfully stubborn, and so determined to troll and own others that they’d suffer great harm themselves just to prove a point
i.e., stupid.
irony
I agree. Outside of Trumpism, most of the Trumpers I know aren’t idiots. Some of them are in fairly technical positions where they really have to think logically. It’s not about stupidity because here’s the thing; Stupid people learn. They might have to burn themselves on the stove two or three times before the lesson sticks, but they learn. MAGA doesn’t learn. It’s worse than stupidity, it’s willful ignorance and a deliberate refusal to see reality for what it is.
With my experience of my two local Trumpers, it’s not so much that they believe everything they’re told by Trump, it’s that they’re just profoundly ignorant of basically all the important things about Trump, and they have no interest in trying to fix that. Tell them anything negative about Trump the person, or his policies, and they’re like the Speaker of the House: “Oh, I don’t know anything about that…”
It would almost be easier if they did actively believe the stupid shit, because you could then just dismiss them as bigots, but just ignorance? That feels like something that should be easy to fix, but it really isn’t. And I just don’t understand that mindset, even if I can recognize it.