Thread
It still amazes me how much traction/justification Trump gets from people who claim that "he tells it like it is". I had a brief conversation with a highly intelligent/educated woman (semi-retired) who works retail at the contractor desk of a large supply chain....1/
I first observed her intelligence when I noticed that she had tax-exempt numbers memorized for customers that came to her. I struck up a conversation w/her, learned about her background, and have had quite a few in-depth, highly intelligent conversations with her.....2/
Yesterday she asked me questions about things I’m working on that eventually led to the topic of the psychological reactions that people have to Trump. When I started to explain these connections….3/
…….I began to notice her body and facial muscles start to tense up as she listened. Before I finished, she reflexively and seemingly obligatorily responded that “he tells it like it is”.....4/
It’s amazing how otherwise intelligent people cling to this justification. Especially as he’s approaching 10,000 false/misleading statements. Serial inaccuracy & pathologically dishonesty are the literal antithesis of telling it like it is. These are mutually exclusive actions 5/
What this shows, is that people aren’t drawn to Trump for “telling it like it is”, they are drawn to him for “telling it like they feel”, regardless of how accurate, how honest, how inconsiderate, or sometimes even how inhumane, his statements may be.
I meant to include climate change in the original thread.
As difficult as it is to accept, similar to the other issues laid out in the thread....does anyone believe climate change will be mitigated under the authoritarian aspirations of the Republican party?
The contradiction: millions of people on the Right who've been "activated" by Bannon....and who, after decades of supporting/protecting corporations, now suddenly want to tear down the system & all of the exploitive actors who've profited.....2/
.....is that after decades of manipulation, they continue to cling to most damaging/threatening narrative.....created by one of the richest/most exploitive industries/corporations (fossil fuel)....that either funds some of the most anti-American regimes (Russian/Middle East)...3/
A recent Trump rally was a sobering reminder of what’s at stake in 2022/2024.
In his speech, Trump openly attempted to obstruct justice, tampered w/witnesses, and, similar to the 1/6 insurrection, encouraged widespread “protests” if he was indicted. 1/
Seemingly every week, there is new evidence further exposing the orchestrated attempt by Trump/GOP to undermine democracy.
And yet, it’s Republican voters who overwhelmingly believe democracy is facing a major threat. 2/ grinnell.edu/news/52-americ…
The absurdity of this is that Republican voters’ belief that democracy is threatened is what actually creates the threat:
Trump’s/GOP’s lies about the 2020 election have manipulated Republicans into thinking it’s patriotic to “steal it back”, & therefore undermine democracy. 3/
An interesting study is linked in @michelleinbklyn's article on how politics negatively affect mental/physical health. The study utilized self-report instruments used to measure Alcohol/Gambling addiction...which is unsurprising based on the parallels: 1/
I've previously analyzed the multitude of factors that affect political impulse control, including social media "addiction"-related sleep deprivation that hyper-activates the amygdala (emotion), & deactivates the prefrontal cortex (reason/judgment).... 3/
The political/election version of rapture prophecies that just keep moving the promised date/outcome farther down the line, with "the delusional, non-occurring predictions reinforcing belief in the conspiracy".
I watched 3 hours of the Joe Rogan interview Dr. Robert Malone. Some observations about Malone, Rogan....and the complexities involving Covid/vaccines, “truth”, cancel culture, Big Pharma, the tribalization of science, political disinformation, and the “Trump effect”: 1/
First, it reinforces how catastrophic it was to have someone as pathologically dishonest as Trump as POTUS when Covid surfaced. I analyzed this extensively in the 70+ threads written between Trump’s covid “hoax” rally, and the 1/6 insurrection. 2/