# Do we have anyone who can do a “Former MAGAt: AMA”? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [November 5, 2025, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585 "2025-11-05T02:20:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/21 "2025-11-05T13:01:39Z")
I would compare it to things that people sincerely believe even though there is no proof, like religion, astrology, crystal energy, and conspiracy theories. Many people who believe in things like that are successful and accomplished people. They are not stupid people. Yet, for whatever reason, they strongly hold onto those beliefs as if they were their bedrock foundation and cannot be swayed from them. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/22 "2025-11-05T13:05:33Z")
I have a similar experience with those in my family, although I am surprised at how smart some think he is. When I hear him speak, I don’t hear intelligence. At all. > [@Velocity](#): > > 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. Some for me too. However, the extent to which they are fully bubbled up is disturbing. They’re literally unaware, for instance, that ICE is trampling the 4th amendment and refuse to believe it. I know this is an issue on the left as well, but I for one make a point to know what has people exercised across the spectrum, and there have been times I learned about something going on from someplace like Breitbart that was getting little or no coverage elsewhere. I’m proud of that, frankly. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/23 "2025-11-05T13:14:35Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > 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…” I feel like I’m missing a step, here. I thought we all just figured that the Speaker is simply _lying._ That he’d like to change the subject _by default,_ by making clear that there’s no point in asking him follow-up questions because you just now got the only answer he’s going to give on that subject: you got his false claim that he doesn’t know what you’re talking about, and, well, now we can talk about something else. Oh, he of course _does_ know what you’re talking about, but he said otherwise; the end. If it’s so in his case, then why figure the people you talk with are any different? ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/24 "2025-11-05T13:23:37Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > If it’s so in his case, then why figure the people you talk with are any different? Because I know them personally, and I don’t think they’re lying. Were they lying, they’d be supporting stuff that goes directly against what appears to be their core beliefs. For example, one guy is the biggest pro-union guy I know, but when I asked him how he squares that with Trump’s well-known history of fucking over working people, he claimed he’d never heard of such a thing. Either he’s lying, and his support for unions has been a lie all along, or he’s really just that ignorant. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/25 "2025-11-05T14:56:06Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > If it’s so in his case, then why figure the people you talk with are any different? My mom has a lot going on in her life. Her own health problems, deaths in the family, home renovation, car issues, etc. When I ask her about things in the news, she says she hasn’t been following, or she’s tired of all the hatred and drama. I believe that’s true, although if she did watch the news it would just be Fox anyway. She has no idea what’s happening. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/26 "2025-11-05T16:20:14Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > The truth is I don’t know how far I can even believe a MAGAt. Do they actually believe Trump? Not to hijack, but I think the thing in play here is that we’ve essentially got two realities set up in our nation. One, the _actual_ reality, is the one we’re all in, where the mainstream media are and the rest of the world is. The other is the GOP-sphere, and the people living in it are living in a world where all the news and information is carefully curated and highly politicized, and outside sources are demonized as “Fake news” or horribly slanted toward liberal viewpoints. And what makes it into the GOP-sphere is always spun to support this reality and support their goals. So when an old woman who is in the GOP-sphere hears about January 6, all they are told is that it was a peaceful protest, and the stuff we saw on CNN was AI, or tricky camera angles, or whatever, because the liberals aren’t telling you the truth. And they believe it, because they’re so conditioned to distrust other information sources. It’s not so much that they’re all idiots, or they’re all deranged, or whatever. It’s far more that what they’ve been groomed to believe and what they’re being told is diametrically opposite to what the rest of us have seen. As someone smart once told me about rational decision making - “If someone _really_ believes the aliens are listening in, wearing a tin-foil hat isn’t a dumb or crazy decision.” Meaning that the issue isn’t the thinking and the choice to wear the tin-foil hat, but rather that the problem is in believing that the aliens are listening in the first place. I feel like something very similar is going on in the GOP-sphere; they’re all acting rationally and even intelligently on the information they’re fed. The problem is that they’re not getting good information, and for whatever reason, they’re insufficiently skeptical of what they’re being told. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/27 "2025-11-05T18:57:13Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > 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. That’s why I’ve amended _Stupid’s forever but ignorance can be fixed_ to add _except when it’s deliberate._ I think I’ve mentioned this before but **DesertRoomie** has a part-time job handling out samples at CostCo. Last February when Trump was mad at Columbia for turning back one of his prisoner planes she was offering Kirkland brand 100% Columbian Coffee. Usually she just does her job but when a woman wearing a blinged MAGA hat took a cup she couldn’t resist a dig. “Better stock up. The price will be rising soon.” “Huh? Why would it do that?” “Because Trump’s put a 25% tariff on Columbian imports. Next week it’s jumping to 50%.” “What’s a tariff?” “It’s a tax paid by the importer on imported goods. If Costco is paying six bucks a can wholesale that means they’ll be paying nine instead and they’re not going to eat that.” “I’ve never heard of it,” and she strutted off. In February the coffee was $12 a can. It’s now $18. So you suppose Ms Bling Hat remembers the conversation? ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/28 "2025-11-05T19:00:44Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > In February the coffee was $12 a can. It’s now $18. So you suppose Ms Bling Hat remembers the conversation? She’s on some other forum right now, telling people how Costco raised the price of coffee just to hurt Trump. “I know because a Costco employee told me about it!” ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/29 "2025-11-05T22:45:50Z")
So depressing ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2025, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/30 "2025-11-08T00:40:54Z")
I think wealthy people vote Republican to keep lower taxes. I think racists vote because Trump is screwing brown people. I think some folks vote that way because they believe Democrats will take away firearms. I think they all make up some reason to keep folks from knowing the real reason they voted for Trump. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2025, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/31 "2025-11-08T09:03:25Z")
Well, you did choose an interesting way to frame the question. I am still going to vote for the more conservative candidate in many cases but I couldn’t vote for Trump in 2024 for a variety of reasons. I can share with you anecdotes about my own decision making and I can share with you anecdotes about people who are rabid Trump supporters. However, I don’t know how much value anonymous anecdotes hold. ---
**Author:** ![DCTrekkie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dctrekkie/32/18862_2.png) [@DCTrekkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCTrekkie)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2025, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/32 "2025-11-08T14:29:32Z")
If you’re voting for those candidates that enable Trump (i.e. any Republican) then you are a Trump supporter, you’re just too embarrassed to admit it. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2025, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/33 "2025-11-08T14:53:46Z")
I would make the comparison to religion. If there was a situation where the winning candidate set the religion for the country, people would frequently vote for the candidate with the same religion as them regardless of the characteristics of the person. So if a Christian and a Jew were running in a country where the state religion would be set by the winning candidate, the Christians would likely vote for the Christian candidate and the Jews for the Jewish candidate because they want their religion to be the state religion. The candidate themselves may not matter. I think that’s what happens with a lot of Republicans who vote for Trump. They want the Republican “religion” to be the state religion, so they vote for the Republican candidate. They may not like Trump as a person and what he does, but voting for him is the only way to have the country be a Republican country. Another way to think about it is to ask yourself what you’d do if right before the election, you found out that the Democratic candidate had committed massive fraud. Say it was Obama vs Romney. For instance, Obama had taken massive payoffs while a Senator. The proof was with video, audio, witnesses, bank records, etc. What would you do on election day? Would you vote for Obama regardless to have the country be run with Democratic policies? Or would you vote for Romney or a 3rd party candidate, which means the country would have more Republican policies. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2025, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/34 "2025-11-08T22:23:45Z")
No. If I would have voted for Trump I would not have been embarrassed at all. Of course I am not surprised that they are no relevant questions with regards to the subject of the thread. So, where are the questions? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2025, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/35 "2025-11-08T22:46:39Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > I think that’s what happens with a lot of Republicans who vote for Trump. They want the Republican “religion” to be the state religion, so they vote for the Republican candidate. They may not like Trump as a person and what he does, but voting for him is the only way to have the country be a Republican country. Agreed, 100%. And then at some point, in the case of MAGAs, their “religion” blinds them to how far gone they are. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2025, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/36 "2025-11-08T22:50:03Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Of course I am not surprised that they are no relevant questions with regards to the subject of the thread. So, where are the questions? You don’t sound like you were a full-blown, blind MAGA who believed that refugees were eating the dogs and cats. Per the OP, I don’t think you believed trump was “a good person”, just that he stood for conservative policies. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2025, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/37 "2025-11-08T22:51:05Z")
**Moderating** : To all: remain civil and remember, don’t attack other posters. Don’t squash the thread. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2025, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/38 "2025-11-08T23:42:42Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Well, you did choose an interesting way to frame the question. I am still going to vote for the more conservative candidate in many cases but I couldn’t vote for Trump in 2024 for a variety of reasons. I can share with you anecdotes about my own decision making and I can share with you anecdotes about people who are rabid Trump supporters. However, I don’t know how much value anonymous anecdotes hold. How do you define conservative? I don’t see how the present day Republicans meet the criteria of being the most conservative. I think that distinction falls to the Chuck Schumer / Andrew Cuomo wing of the Democratic Party (which ironically is why I think the Democrats have trouble getting people to show up to re-elect Democrats as opposed to voting against Republicans, because who gets excited to re-elect boring old conservative white men). It’s not even a matter of the morality or the good vs. evil axis. It’s about the lawful vs. chaotic axis. IMHO the present day Republican Party falls on the chaos side of that spectrum. I can’t imagine how chaos can be considered more conservative than lawful. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2025, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/39 "2025-11-09T01:04:09Z")
I agree with a lot of that. One of the problems with binary choices and even the concept of a left-right axis of politics is that it removes a tremendous amount of nuance from the space. Politics is intrinsically multi-dimensional and reducing it to a one dimensional space is counterproductive. I’d say, again this is anecdotally, that the people I know that are rabid Trumpers are so because they either have very high antipathy towards a component of the left or they see Trump as an imperfect vessel of change that will enact policy they mostly agree with. They aren’t quite single issue voters but they are close. Furthermore, they value the label they associate with. What I find most worrisome is the disconnect from actual reality that many of them have. I’m not saying that that is something only fervent/rabid Trump supporters hold but the lack of a shared reality can’t lead to a good result in the long term. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2025, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585/40 "2025-11-09T01:12:33Z")
I’m a former Republican but not a former MAGA, because I couldn’t bring myself to vote for him in 2016 and what he and other Republicans did after that year pushed me left. By 2020 I was fully with the Democrats. So I don’t count. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-we-have-anyone-who-can-do-a-former-magat-ama/1024585.md?page=3)