How they see him.
The reality.
While dropping my kid off at school, I noticed two bumper stickers on the car in front of me. One sticker had Trump's visage with the phrase "Miss me yet?" while the other proclaimed "Believe that there is still good in the world." I almost pulled out my phone to take a picture, but alas, I did not. I have never seen a better example of double-think. It is almost unimaginable to visualize the amount of cognitive dissonance someone would have to possess to believe in both Donald Trump and hope. You can only believe in both if you have conjured up a version of Donald Trump so divorced from reality that he doesn't resemble in the slightest the real-world person. Let's examine some of Trump's bonafides:
-.He has declared bankruptcy six times.
- Trump has been accused of sexual assault numerous times and been convicted of sexually abusing E. Jean Caroll in civil court.
- He has a long history of racist comments and actions.
- He's currently spending a lot of time in court, having been indicted four times for business fraud in New York, election interference in Georgia, for stealing classified documents, and for attempting to steal the 2020 Presidential election.
- Trump has a long history of saying and doing stupid things, including looking directly into a solar eclipse and proclaiming himself a stable genius.
- He was best buddies with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
- Oh yeah, he also politicized the Covid-19 pandemic, downplaying its effects and criticizing mitigating precautions, leading to the deaths of over a million people.
Flesh and blood Donald Trump is a narcissist, a failed business man, a corrupt President with blood on his hands. He is a stupid, stupid person with almost no redeeming qualities, yet he just won the Iowa caucus with 52 percent of the vote. What are Republican voters thinking? Do they actually like the fascism that Trump is selling?
Do they even care?
MAGA Republicans (all Republicans, in other words) live in a media bubble of Fox News, Facebook posts, and real-world groupthink. None of the media they consume reports on Trump's many crimes and failings. If they hear about something, they dismiss it as partisan or untrue. They refuse to contemplate Trump the person because facts have no place in the argument for them. They have faith in Donald Trump the Messiah, Trump the God-King. He is a religious figure to them. This is Trump with Rambo's body, Trump the wall-builder, Trump the virtuous, bowing his head in piety as he sits in church with his family.
We're talking about a man whose own charity was a scam, a man who reportedly called dead veterans "losers" and "suckers." This is a guy who often mused what it would be like to have sex with his own daughter, who bragged on record to Billy Bush that he liked to "grab them (women) by the pussy." When Trump said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and not lose any voters, he's admitting that he understands the duality of his nature. His voters see him like they see Jesus. Donald Trump the God-King is God's vessel that will bring back America's Golden Age, when there were no transgenders or gays, when women stayed home and made perfect white babies while the men fucked around at the office, getting loaded and going to strip clubs after work. None of this shit makes any sense; the irony that the man least suited to be the avatar of Jesus Christ on Earth is embraced by 99 percent of evangelicals is incomprehensible only if you think that evangelicals believe any of the shit they spew. Likewise, the MAGA faithful choose to hold two opposing truths in their minds. Belief doesn't necessarily have to have logical consistency. Faith is not about evidence or truth. Faith is about believing in something or someone no matter what your eyes or other senses tell you. Faith is hope.
Suddenly the two bumper stickers make more sense. The problem is that Donald Trump the person is not Donald Trump the God-King, and no amount of emotional reasoning or faith will make Trump into the messiah they want him to be. Donald Trump the person has vowed to be a dictator on day one and to seek revenge on those who wronged him. Look no further than the human and economic ravage Trump wrought through his mishandling of the pandemic for ample evidence of his incapacity to govern, or his many attacks on our democratic institutions for what he will do if given a second chance. Remember: Jesus may love you, but Trump doesn't care if you die in the snow, as long as you vote for him.
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