Views from Crestmont Drive

As evidence for my thoughts, in this post Notes for the Book: Magical Thinking, Cognitive Dissonance, Group-Thinking, about how many people live in a kind of make-believe world, for reasons of group solidarity, and despite the inevitable cognitive dissonance with reminders of how the world really works, consider Donald Trump and his supporters.

Washington Post, Max Boot: How can 42 percent of Americans still support the worst president in our history?.

Some of the answers (preserving the source links):

A Pew Research Center survey makes clear the extent of the problem. Among those who get their election news primarily from Fox “News,” 86 percent say Trump is delivering the “completely right” or “mostly right” message about the pandemic, 78 percent that “the U.S. has controlled the outbreak as much as it could have” and 61 percent that Trump and his administration get the facts right about the coronavirus “almost all” or “most of the time.” Perhaps the most disturbing finding of all: 39 percent of Fox News viewers say that QAnon — an insane conspiracy theory that posits that Trump’s opponents are satanic child-molesters — is “somewhat good” or “very good” for the country.

I’m sorry, these are not issues on which rational people can legitimately disagree. Trump’s covid-19 message — that, as he said Saturday, “it is disappearing” — is objectively false. In the past week, daily confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States have increased by 13.3 percent and hospitalizations by 9.8 percent. Trump’s claims to the contrary, we have done far worse during the pandemic than most wealthy countries. If we had the same death rate as Canada, 132,000 victims of covid-19 would still be alive. And it should go without saying that QAnon, whose adherents have been linked to numerous acts of violence, is a bane, not a boon.

…

It’s bad enough that the president lies so much; what’s worse is that so many think he is telling the truth.

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Trump supporters simply don’t understand why everyone doesn’t agree that he’s the best ever; why do those lib’rals disapprove of him? Here are two early summaries of why so many people feel he’s a despicable person — both published several years ago, originally.

A British writer, Nate White, answered the question, “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” His response was reposted today in the London Daily.

British Writer Pens The Best Description Of Trump I’ve Read

A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

It goes on.

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Another is a Facebook post by SF writer Adam-Troy Castro, a long post that has apparently been copied around the web, often without attribution. I can’t find the original post, but here’s a copy on Quora, that credits Castro.

Quora: An anguished question from a Trump supporter: “Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?”

The serious answer: Here’s what we really think about Trump supporters – the rich, the poor, the malignant and the innocently well-meaning, the ones who think and the ones who don’t…

That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought “Fine.”

That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, “Okay.”

That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, “No problem.”

That when he made up stories about seeing Muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, “Not an issue.”

That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn’t care, you chirped, “He sure knows me.”

It goes on with 15 more examples, similarly phrased. It ends with:

What you don’t get, Trump supporters in 2019, is that succumbing to frustration and thinking of you as stupid may be wrong and unhelpful, but it’s also…hear me…charitable.

Because if you’re NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations and most of them are less flattering.

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Seen on Facebook today, this, from a deliberately anonymous blogger, posted in August:

The Case Against Trump (and why some of your friends and family no longer want to speak to you)

I generally avoid “just-some-guy-on-the-Internet” posts, since this guy is anonymous and I don’t know his credibility, but his analysis and list of Trump’s performance on various issues — the economy, Christian values, political ethics, and so on — is exhaustive, and more to the point, entirely familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention the past four plus years.

The way I see it, there are two types of Trump voter. There is the hardcore MAGA fanatic, who attends the rallies, wears the red hat, and maybe even follows the Qanon boards. They follow Trump with a level of devotion that is implacable. They will never believe that Donald Trump is anything other than the savior of our country, sent by God to deliver us from a multitude of politically correct and liberal attacks. They cannot be reasoned with, nor would I try.

The other type of voter, the ones I am appealing to with this article, are not like that at all. These are good people, moral people, who simply voted for Trump because they believed he was the best choice for the values they hold. They don’t think he’s the greatest president to sit in the White House, but they believe he was a better choice than Clinton. Or perhaps they are just dyed-in-the-wool Republicans who always vote red, no matter whom.

Are you one of those people? If so, I have just one question. Are you planning on voting for him again in November? If the answer is yes, then I have another question.

Why?

I would really like to understand. Is it an economic issue? Are you fearful of paying higher taxes? Are you worried about having to pay for someone else’s health insurance? Or benefits to those you consider undeserving? Okay, I understand. I don’t agree, but I understand. But let me ask you a question. Do you not think that we might be beyond that now? Can you consider the possibility that there is a bigger picture, and the choice can no longer be pared down to tax breaks or welfare spending?

He ends, after nearly 18,000 words, with

We’re not okay with that. And we are really not okay with another four years of this horror show. If that is what you vote for, we cannot overlook it in the future. At best, we will not be able to forgive you. At worst, you will find, in the years to come, that you will not be able to forgive yourself.

And a list of sources.

The Washington Post
The New York Times
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
The Cato Institute
trumpgolfcount.com
NPR
The Independent
AOL
Rueters
mcsweeneys.net
Politifact
NBC
Snopes
Axios
Brookings Institute
Chicago Tribune
commondreams.org
opensecrets.org
Rolling Stone
Boston Globe
The Guardian
americanbar.org

Which Trump supporters will presumably dismiss as a conspiracy by the “fake news” media. All of them! Everything is a conspiracy to them; only Fox News is true.

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One more.

Washington Post: New research explores authoritarian mind-set of Trump’s core supporters. Subtitle: “Data reveal high levels of anti-democratic beliefs among many of the president’s backers, who stand to be a potent voting bloc for years to come”

The Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been a catastrophic failure, with researchers at Oxford University estimating that its mismanagement of the crisis resulted in nearly 60,000 preventable deaths.

And yet, despite the tumult of the past eight months, President Trump’s favorability numbers have barely budged: His approval rating hovers in the low 40s, just as it has most of his presidency. As the economy cratered and covid-19 mortality skyrocketed, the Trump faithful stuck with him, lending credence to his infamous 2016 campaign boast that he “could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose any support.

Why is that?

A new book by a psychology professor and a former lawyer in the Nixon White House argues that Trump has tapped into a current of authoritarianism in the American electorate, one that’s bubbled just below the surface for years. In “Authoritarian Nightmare,” Bob Altemeyer and John W. Dean marshal data from a previously unpublished nationwide survey showing a striking desire for strong authoritarian leadership among Republican voters.

Some people just *want* to be told what to do and think. Which is to say, it’s not about policy; it’s about psychology. It doesn’t matter what the policy is, even, though appealing to voters’ fears and prejudices always seems to work.

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History will look back on this era of American history — whether or not America survives it — and analyze it, as they analyze the rise of other authoritarians throughout history. And will not be kind the supporters of those authoritarians. They will understand them, psychologically, as aberrations to the ideals of democracy and rationality.

As if on cue, following my past few posts, here’s a NY Times columnist today on Why Fox News Is Still in a Coronavirus Bubble. Subtitle: “Humans will do figure eights to make facts suit their fictions. Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity help the faithful do that.”

The opening:

Back in the 1950s, the psychologist Leon Festinger came up with cognitive dissonance theory, which can essentially be described as the very human desire to reconcile the irreconcilable. Our brains, he realized, will go to baroque lengths — do magic tricks, even — to preserve the integrity of our worldview, even when the facts inconveniently club us over the head with a two-by-four.

Festinger’s most famous case study was of a cult that believed life on Earth would come to an end in a great flood around Christmas of 1954. The waters never came (obviously), but the leader had an explanation: She and her followers had warded off the apocalypse with the unflagging power of their faith.

Today, perhaps the best case study of cognitive dissonance theory can be found in the prime-time lineup on Fox News, where Donald Trump’s most dedicated supporters are struggling mightily to make sense of the president’s Covid-19 diagnosis. And just as Festinger’s work predicts, they are doubling down on their beliefs, interpreting recent events as incontrovertible proof that they were right from the start.

With examples.

Even if they were to wake up one morning and realize that their thinking about this pandemic had involved some catastrophic errors in judgment, neither Sean Hannity nor Laura Ingraham seems like the type who’d acknowledge them publicly. It’s much more likely that they would quietly consign them to a memory hole. Conceding mistakes requires intellectual humility, which in both of these hosts is in demonstrably short supply; and anyway, what they peddle is certainty, cocksurety of opinion. It’s their brand.

It’s also something called the sunken-cost fallacy. Once you’ve invested so much time, social currency, and years of your life committed to a particular belief, or belief system, it’s difficult to walk away from it, admit you were wrong and you’ve changed your mind, and let go of that investment. Especially in a community environment.

And of course the increasingly wide recognition that you can’t change anyone’s mind by presenting them evidence, no matter how unassailable. People find reasons to dismiss the evidence, for one reason or another. I suppose these are two sides of the same coin.

Conclusion:

Even under the best of circumstances, we humans love nothing more than to say, “Told you so.” As Kathryn Schulz writes in “Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error,” it’s basically a way of saying, “Not only was I right, I was also right about being right.”

But it is also through recognizing our errors, Schulz points out, that we learn, change and grow. A simple message, yes, but an impossibly urgent one right now. For those who’ve dismissed or downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, now is a good time to reconsider that position. And for those who’ve prayed for such a conversion, now is a good time simply to be thankful, and not to judge.

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Thus.

NYT: Trump May Have Covid, but Many of His Supporters Still Scoff at Masks. Subtitle: They echo misinformation that the president has spread for much of the year, as he has sought to minimize the threat of the virus.

WP: The common link in the torrent of Trump news: His disdain for rules.

Slate: Trump, Laboring to Breathe, Says He’s Fine and Everything Else Will Be Too if You Just Believe Him.

And millions of people will! They’ll believe anything fearless leader tells them!

The Atlantic: Il Donald. Subtitle: The president knows what Mussolini knew: Some audiences crave images that offer false reassurance and over-the-top displays of power.

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But the other shoe hasn’t yet dropped. There’s this, apparently trending across Twitter today:

A humbling Herman Cain/coronavirus timeline

Cain kept saying he was feeling fine and getting better for over three weeks after testing positive, and then three days later died.

We’ll see. The ending has not yet been written.

Washington Post: The GOP’s coronavirus denialism finally catches up with its leaders, by traditionally conservative writer Max Boot.

He responds to a tweet, by a Republican.

“Does anyone else find it odd,” she wrote Friday, “that no prominent Democrats have had the virus but the list of Republicans goes on and on?”

You would consider that odd only if you also consider it odd that people who wear seat belts are more likely to survive car accidents or that those who jump out of airplanes with parachutes are more likely to reach the ground intact than those who don’t.

His take:

How could this possibly be? Perhaps — I’m spitballing here — it is related to the Republican Party’s rejection of science, its embrace of conspiracy theories and its transformation into a cult of personality? Having long been in denial about climate change, the Republican Party this year has also been in denial about the novel coronavirus.

And points out that

Researchers have shown that those who rely on right-wing sources such as Fox “News” and Rush Limbaugh are much more likely to hold mistaken beliefs about the coronavirus than those who look to the mainstream media for information.

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Slate, Fred Kaplan: Trump’s Narcissism Is As Healthy As Ever. Subtitle: The president is incapable of understanding anything that didn’t happen directly to him.

The message is in the subtitle. This echoes my earlier comment that some people have a hard time believing anything that they cannot personally touch or see. Thus flat-earthers.

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Psychology Today: Cults and Cognition: Programming the True Believer. Subtitle: How do cognitive processes contribute to bizarre—and lethal—cult beliefs?

Jim Jones, the Branch Davidians, the Comet Hale-Bopp UFO.

The obvious question: How does cult psychology work? How is it possible to persuade human adults to enter a weird cognitive landscape with no basis in reality? To enter a fantasy realm so profound that they’ll willingly die for whomever has been selected as the local Messiah?

A complete answer to this crucial question is beyond our scope or available space, so in this and the next two Forensic Views, we’re going to focus on three specific cognitive cult dynamics: dissociation, group psychology, and cognitive dissonance.

This particular column, first of three, focuses on cognitive dissonance.