Guilty verdicts will not alter views of Trumpers

Guilty verdicts will not alter the views of extreme Trumpers
Opinion by Robert Pawlicki, Tribune News Service
August 2023
S
In a handout provided by the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, former President Donald Trump poses for his booking photo at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023, in Atlanta Trump was booked on 13 charges related to an alleged plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
In a handout provided by the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, former President Donald Trump poses for his booking photo at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023, in Atlanta Trump was booked on 13 charges related to an alleged plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
© Fulton County Sheriff's Office/Getty Images North America/TNS
There are 28 million smokers in the United States. This, despite at least six decades of medical evidence supporting the ghastly damage from this habit.

About 15% of Americans failed to receive any COVID vaccinations, while more than 1 million died during our recent pandemic. The list can go on and on. Statistics and data don’t necessarily persuade people to change their behavior.

The most devoted of Donald Trump’s followers fit the same pattern. Facts and data are ineffective in influencing their beliefs and decisions.

When beliefs are deeply entrenched, facts become irrelevant. Changing deeply held erroneous views of reality is a challenge that has been studied. One dramatic illustration is a small group in the 1950s who believed in the world’s imminent end. A specific date was forecast, and followers believed that aliens would rescue the devout.

Researcher Leon Festinger and colleagues took a particular interest in the members’ coping mechanisms after repeated predicted dates went by without destruction. Committed members continued to believe that the world would soon be destroyed. The date had just been incorrect. They continued their false belief for some time with various alternative rationalizations, what Festinger labeled cognitive dissonance. Only after this small group lost a few members did the core disband.

Those who believe that Joe Biden is not our legitimate president are in denial. More than 60 state courts and a mountain of evidence certified that Biden won the 2020 election. There was no fraud. Yet, according to a CNN report, “69 percent of Republicans and those leaning Republican believe Biden is an illegitimate president.” More than half say there is “solid evidence” of fraud.

If Trump were to be convicted, his most devoted followers would not alter their views. Unlike the tiny group who believed the world would end, social media allows loyalists to reinforce one another in denial that Trump lost the 2020 election. Two impeachment trials and the Jan. 6 committee had no effect. It’s unlikely that the current multiple indictments will be any different.

It’s not that facts are irrelevant. It’s just that emotions, biases, allegiances and mental filters come into play. Anger, grievance and resentment are particularly potent. Emotions have many contributors, but they — and support from like-minded peers — become the dominant decision-makers.

Related video: Donald Trump has claimed he’s being “persecuted” after he pled not guilty to conspiring to overturn the 2020 election (BANG Showbiz India)

If you put yourself in the mindset of a strong Trump supporter, the world looks very different.

Trump bonded early on with the anti-establishment crowd and further solidified that relationship by “sticking it to the liberals,” using outlandish labels and emotional language regarding immigrants and minorities. He proved his bona fides early by defeating Hillary Clinton, whom they considered a dark force for calling Trump supporters deplorable. For conservatives and those unhappy with “uppity” women, Hillary was a female Darth Vader dressed in pants. Having a Black president for eight years, too, stirred negative emotions that Trump capitalized on.

Not all Republicans fit this picture, but most of his extreme followers do.

Republicans do not have a monopoly on bias. Every human filters the outside world, including Democrats and Republicans. Turning the channel between Fox and MSNBC changes from one reality to another.

There are, however, extreme biases when emotions deny unsaleable facts, be it from Silvio Berlusconi, Vladimir Putin or even the Rev. Jim Jones, who induced 900 followers to drink poisoned Kool-Aid at his urging.

Anti-Trumpers are confounded by the loyalty from the Republican Party, primarily the highly devoted. They see endless blatant lies and crude behaviors. Trump’s followers, built on their emotional attachment, see these behaviors as tools to rile up their opponents and support their values.

If Trump is found guilty of the crimes claimed, he will, over time, have fewer followers. But, if history is any indication, facts will play little role for those whose emotions and devotions are intense.

____

ABOUT THE WRITER

Robert Pawlicki is a retired psychologist and author. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

___

©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

***
'Martyred savior of America': Former MAGA pundit reveals disturbing views behind Trump 'cult'
Story by Matthew Chapman •
August 2023
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
© provided by RawStory

A former Trump-backing pundit is opening up about the quasi-religious way in which the former president's supporters view him, in an interview with Salon's Chauncey DeVega.

In essence, said Rich Logis, the Trump movement is a cult — a theory propounded by many other political observers, including former Republican lawmakers. But it goes even deeper than that.

"There are two prevailing ties that bind the MAGA cult," said Logis, who freely admits to being "deep" in this movement in 2020 and believes he would have never escaped if not for Trump's loss shaking him out of it. "The first is that Trump is an omniscient, omnipotent, martyred savior of America; some believe him to be sent by God."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

This, he noted, is one reason Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis isn't taking off — not only because he doesn't command the cult, but because his own quasi-religious branding of himself as being sent by God in political ads is considered an act of "heresy" in these circles.

"Martyrdom is the final stage of cult leadership, and to those in a cult, it is the outside world who are deceived," said Logis. "Those in this first category are willing to see through the cult to its fiery end."

But that is not the only type of person sucked into the movement, said Logis. Another is people who are "politically traumatized by their hyper-partisan, paralytic, paranoid worldview that Democrats, socialists, communists and Marxists have long conspired to tyrannically infringe upon their rights and freedoms."

Some Trump supporters, Logis noted, fit both groups.

Polling indicates that Trump is far ahead of any of his challengers for the 2024 nomination, DeSantis included, and last week's GOP debate in Milwaukee, which Trump blew off, appears to have had no impact on this.