4d ago

The Trump Backers Who Have Buyer’s Remorse | With every new policy and offhand remark, Trump belies the imaginary versions of himself that inspired many of his supporters.

www.theatlantic.com The Trump Backers Who Have Buyer’s Remorse

With every new policy and offhand remark, Trump belies the imaginary versions of himself that inspired many of his supporters.

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Wtf he was president before. He said incredibly worrying things during his campaign. Project2025?
- IIRC, he was allegedly not supposed to laugh in that scene, and he was just caught off-guard by Gene ad-libbing the "morons" line, so that's an authentic laugh that they kept in the film.
  
  It's not funny this time, though.
- A lot of people didn't even hear about project 2025. Even then, you had to be fairly plugged in to have heard anything more than his disavowal of it.
  
  This is just making excuses... I'm not even from the USA and heard all about it
  Choosing to stick your head in the Fox News sand does not excuse ignorance

This seems like a standard hopium piece on the left. Take the first anecdote:
Last June, the popular UFC fighter Sean Strickland surprised onlookers when, immediately following a victory, he ducked into the audience and took a photo with a bystander: Donald Trump. “President Trump, you’re the man, bro,” Strickland declared in his post-match interview with Joe Rogan. “It is a damn travesty what they’re doing to you. I’ll be donating to you, my man. Let’s get it done.” Video of the moment rocketed across social media, serving as an early indicator of Trump’s enduring strength with his base, despite his recent felony convictions.
Strickland went viral last week for a very different reason: opposition to the president and his plan to take over Gaza. “Man if Trump keeps this bs up I’m about to start waving a Palestinian flag,” the fighter posted on X. “American cities are shitholes and you wanna go spend billions on this dumpster fire. Did we make a mistake?! This ain’t America first.” Strickland’s lament racked up 159,000 likes and 13.2 million views.
This isn't even buyer's remorse - Strickland couldn't even bring himself to make a statement rather than a question - but even assuming it is, the article fundamentally misunderstands MAGA believers' relationship with Trump. Sure, they will question random one-off decisions, but even outright contradicting their own interests will at best draw this - momentary mild annoyance. Meanwhile, if next week Trump says something that can be contorted to be a show of support for their own goals, even if wildly improbable and incoherent, they'll be back to fawning over him.
We see him as a toddler, or a middle-school bully who tears the legs off frogs for fun. Yes, that is true, but irrelevant. What this article writer doesn't get is that parents will usually do anything to protect their baby, or live in denial that their middle-schooler is a psychopath.
These complaints are in reality just cries for the warm blanket of propaganda to lull them back to sleep with some easy answer, and annoyance at the vertigo of momentarily seeing reality. The thesis that Trump's support will fall over time because of this is absurd.

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H.L. Mencken
- The problem with this is that the same argument (that people are too stupid and can't be trusted with voting) was made against the concept of democracy in the first place, and was also the justification for the electoral college. It's an inherently cynical argument in favor of authoritarianism and "divine right to rule" over representative government.
  
  Yes, but an educated populice in required for democracy to be done correctly. Which we are lacking, which leads to statements like this becoming true and democracy becoming not true.

A: Hey bud, this house is probably gonna need a new roof soon. the foundation is all eaten up. Those pipes are still lead. There’s asbestos in the walls. And you’re right next to a waste water treatment plant. Maybe you should look for anoth—
B: No I like it. The door is my favorite color.
A: Color? I mean, you can paint any—
B: No no, this is the one. It has a red door. Nothing else matters.

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