and basic. They all saw what happened to the economy on his watch. They all saw what he did on 1/6. WHY DID THEY BELIEVE HIM? I am not only curious about the answer, but also about why the question is never asked.
Replies
The problem is many never did see the truth. They only saw lies. I recently blocked a lifelong friend who tried to tell my Nancy Pelosi incited the Jan 6th riots. He was certain of it. He didn’t learn that on CNN
jul 6, 2025, 1:12 pm • 3 1 • view
you hear this a lot - a latino from one country getting deported and saying "I thought he'd deport [people from some other latin country]" they don't like each other. They believed the deportations would be for their rivals, as long as they kissed trump's feet.
jul 7, 2025, 2:33 am • 11 0 • view
Cultural war. Mango Mussolini gave non-college educated slackjaw yokels a one-in-their lifetimes sense of momentary victory over the educated liberals who have lorded it over them for decades. They can (& have) voted against their own self interest for that momentary rush.
jul 6, 2025, 3:06 pm • 27 3 • view
Our entire family are college grads. We, like every American, had the opportunity to peruse a higher education. The difference is we chose to take advantage of it. They can only blame themselves for their ignorance.
jul 6, 2025, 3:43 pm • 6 1 • view
They believed him because they share the same hatred, racism, misogyny, homophobia and bigotry. They are him and he is them
jul 6, 2025, 12:59 pm • 15 2 • view
Agree. Also, that he gives them cover for those bigotries.
jul 6, 2025, 1:01 pm • 12 0 • view
Fox News and the like. Brainwashed
jul 6, 2025, 12:05 pm • 46 2 • view
Exactly, he targeted the uninformed voter & with media’s help used fear & propaganda. Why didn’t public ed stop it? Public ed does very few & very light lessons on propaganda. Too busy teaching to tests that keeps their funding to teach critical thinking. Plus many are too lazy to think.
jul 6, 2025, 2:05 pm • 11 1 • view
They have been conditioned to only absorb the propaganda they are fed
jul 7, 2025, 11:31 am • 1 0 • view
I am kind of tired of the myth of the uninformed voter. They were informed, over and over, by any and every possible avenue including mango musolini himself for months if not years on end and willfully chose ignorance
jul 6, 2025, 2:44 pm • 14 1 • view
Nobody,but the curious, watches the news anymore.
jul 6, 2025, 2:48 pm • 2 0 • view
I only that were true, you wouldn't be heading for a fascist dictatorship, same for the UK
jul 7, 2025, 11:29 am • 0 0 • view
generalstrikeus.com Better get involved unless you want to live under a dictatorship‼️
jul 6, 2025, 3:16 pm • 3 1 • view
He lies and keeps repeating the lies
jul 6, 2025, 10:30 pm • 0 0 • view
And follow up to the follow up: have you switched parties?
jul 6, 2025, 2:16 pm • 2 1 • view
Most won't admit it, but the ppl I knew who voted for him, did so because they believe the "illegal immigrants are criminals" trope. They won't acknowledge what is written on the Statue of Liberty or that everyone with brown-skin (or anyone defending them) is a target.
jul 6, 2025, 1:22 pm • 6 0 • view
And this goes for a small percentage of Hispanics as well. 23% of Hispanics polled think Alligator Alcatraz is a good idea. Typical "othering" attitude.
jul 6, 2025, 1:22 pm • 5 0 • view
They are just fine with horrible outcomes happening to other people & ignored the facts about dictator behavior: dictators lie & don’t stop with just one group of people; they go after everyone they think is a threat to their power.
jul 6, 2025, 1:35 pm • 4 0 • view
When you say "they all saw what happened, you seem to assume that Americans on the right, center and left still inhabit a shared information space, when we are almost entirely siloed in our own little corner of mediated reality. They saw a heroic president facing an evil cabal of scheming libs.
jul 6, 2025, 11:58 am • 14 3 • view
This is the correct answer. We have politicized information, news, weather, sports, religion,education, health, food, history, ad infinitum- The real question is why do we still call it the “United” States? Anyone who thinks we go through this period in our history w/o vast bloodshed is a fool.
jul 6, 2025, 1:18 pm • 2 0 • view
That is the fundamental challenge facing us: somehow restoring a shared reality that we can all see and understand and then effectively respond to appropriately.
jul 6, 2025, 11:58 am • 11 0 • view
I would add that many things those of us who are not MAGA Republicans see as bugs are features. Sex assault? Fraud? Malfeasance? He's just a guy who took what was rightfully his and didn't ask. It's no accident many heroes in our culture (cf every maverick cop movie ever) center on breaking norms.
jul 7, 2025, 2:46 am • 2 0 • view
That's the other, deeper, piece of the puzzle; the phrase "the culture war" was widely known, but most of the left failed to take it seriously.
jul 7, 2025, 3:43 am • 2 0 • view
The right, meanwhile, was actually *engaged in* a war to reclaim the culture by laying out a full-blown mythology that acts as the paradigm through which all mundane facts, whether shared with us or not, are interpreted.
jul 7, 2025, 3:43 am • 2 1 • view
great point!
jul 7, 2025, 8:20 am • 0 0 • view
That deeper story is much more difficult to change.
jul 7, 2025, 3:43 am • 1 0 • view
I can't recall who said it (it was on here I think?) but liberals and anyone who isn't a supporter take Trump literally but not seriously, whereas his supporters take him seriously but not literally. I think that is salient and a good way to look at it and the question of why they follow(ed) him.
jul 7, 2025, 2:47 am • 2 0 • view
The propaganda networks like Fox News work because of the GOP psyops on the base. They have convinced the base that ideology is more important than facts. The GOP keeps the base purposefully uneducated b/c they are easier to manipulate and control. youtu.be/tmaKl0Zm2c4?...
jul 6, 2025, 1:28 pm • 3 0 • view
And the GOP fear-mongering and gaslighting work on the base for a reason. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind...
jul 6, 2025, 1:29 pm • 0 0 • view
Democrats listen to 🌮 tits and he reminds us of the guy at the end of the bar who drank far too much, is too loud & is spouting conspiracy theories to anyone who will listen to him. We back away. MAGA hear him & think he’s their daddy. They welcome him with open arms.
jul 6, 2025, 4:14 pm • 1 0 • view
There are a great many who simply don’t know what’s going on. The ignorance of friends and acquaintances I’ve spoken to is astounding. Media control works, apparently. For the rest, I think it’s clear that empathy must be nurtured or it dies.
jul 6, 2025, 1:15 pm • 4 1 • view
They are maliciously ignorant. And the GOP keeps the base purposefully uneducated because they are easier to manipulate and control. It's all part of the nearly half-century of GOP psyops on the base to get us exactly here.
jul 6, 2025, 1:34 pm • 2 1 • view
Please don’t make assumptions about my personal conversations. I assure you that I know the difference between someone claiming all the bad things Trump does is AI and someone who legitimately didn’t know that Christian Nationalists existed.
jul 6, 2025, 1:47 pm • 1 0 • view
I wasn't making assumptions about your conversations. My degrees are in psychology and this is a large part of why they are the way they are. The fear-mongering and gaslighting work on the base for a reason. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind...
jul 6, 2025, 1:50 pm • 1 0 • view
No people group is a monolith. Only half of the “base” is likely full blown maga sycophants. The rest are just regular, misinformed people who have their head down trying to survive under decades of exploitation.
jul 6, 2025, 1:55 pm • 2 0 • view
And they don't know how to inform themselves because they are purposefully uneducated.
jul 6, 2025, 1:57 pm • 1 0 • view
YES!! Information suppression is REAL especially in red areas!! It’s also controlled by the collective. So, sharing real data doesn’t happen. And algorithms are awful. Especially with Russian bots that went next level. I clicked on 1 organic something or other and was FLOODED with conspiracy crap.
jul 6, 2025, 1:18 pm • 1 0 • view
Bc the desire to feel superior to others is more enticing to them than voting for & getting a superior quality of life. Their identities are built in relation to those they hate. Many are lost inside w/out their hate & judgement, which is why they cling to it despite facts, history, & morality.
jul 6, 2025, 8:26 pm • 24 3 • view
Yes! Not enough people get this. They vote bc he makes them feel superior and the way he makes others suffer satisfies their sadistic bullyism. They do not see any humanity in those he torments.
jul 7, 2025, 8:16 am • 2 0 • view
There are many who identified purely on racism. But I also believe the gutting of the middle class & education has caused this over successive administrations. Trump came up with a slogan they love. Take us back to the good times (just so happens that was when whites dominated everything).
jul 7, 2025, 1:17 am • 2 0 • view
There are ppl who identify on racism & admit it & there are ppl who identify with it on racism who can’t admit it or maybe even can’t see it. But to ignore racism is racist. I think it’s the result of families not being honest that they were pro-segregation during the civil rights era that…
jul 7, 2025, 1:29 am • 2 0 • view
Actually caused most of this. These pro-segregation ppl like to pretend like they respected the civil rights movement back then 🙄, they teach their kids about the golden era of that time (for whites) & not about how they went to lynchings after church. They leave that out of the dinner discussion.
jul 7, 2025, 1:29 am • 2 1 • view
That creates a fantasy their adult kids believe in today that they should try to recreate, coupled with the lack of Black American history taught in school, & the lack of penalties for racist behavior from faculty & students at school is why we are here.
jul 7, 2025, 1:29 am • 2 0 • view
It is quintessential American culture to oppose truth & accountability, & to rewrite history. It is the American way to play pretend. And every American that enables it with their silence has also brought us here.
jul 7, 2025, 1:29 am • 3 0 • view
It's the same answer, they believe him because of their psychopathology and that's not an answer the political press will accept. www.theauthoritarians.org
jul 6, 2025, 5:15 pm • 0 0 • view
Because even the one asking the question doesn’t want to hear the truth bc it alines with their truth; “because he’s a white man”. White supremacy has conditioned ALL of us to always give whites the benefit of the doubt, to think there’s inherent good in them, even when the contrary is proven
jul 6, 2025, 1:29 pm • 9 0 • view
Because he said what they wanted to hear. Because the alternative meant believing people they hated.
jul 6, 2025, 2:09 pm • 3 0 • view
"He was already President and it was fine", is what I hear. Yeah, I know. I know. But if you don't pay attention to anything, it is possible to feel this way I guess.
jul 6, 2025, 3:25 pm • 1 0 • view
They were programmed to believe him. The GOP has been running psyops on the base for nearly a half-century. The fear-mongering and gaslighting work for a reason. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind...
jul 6, 2025, 1:26 pm • 7 2 • view
We are not the same. www.scientificamerican.com/article/cons...
jul 6, 2025, 1:36 pm • 6 3 • view
They believed him because right wing media told them everything they wanted to hear. Fox News told them that brown people were to blame for their problems, that Trump is a good businessman, and that Trump is their messiah and will fix all of their problems.
jul 6, 2025, 4:48 pm • 0 0 • view
"It is easier to fool someone than to get them to admit they have been fooled" -Mark Twain Some human weaknesses are timeless, and not wanting to admit you were wrong is the sin of pride, the root cause of many problems in this World.
jul 6, 2025, 4:27 pm • 4 1 • view
Because they usually cover that in their teary confessions, “I didn’t think he meant me!”
jul 6, 2025, 10:55 pm • 0 0 • view
I’ve asked a few - and the response I get is usually some rabbit hole conspiracy on how this is a battle of good vs evil that includes some pizza-gate conspiracy level stuff that blames everyone but him.
jul 6, 2025, 1:18 pm • 4 0 • view
Feelings based evidence gathering. Many such cases
jul 7, 2025, 4:36 am • 1 1 • view
Trumplings are like parrots. They mindlessly keep repeating talking points they really don't understand nor care to even try to understand. Faith is their fortress from reality & thinking.
jul 6, 2025, 11:02 pm • 1 1 • view
They believe him, because they AGREE with him. There IS no other reason.
jul 7, 2025, 4:48 am • 2 1 • view
For many, belief in TACO wasn’t about policy outcomes or historical precedent—it was about belonging, resentment, and hope, however misplaced. When someone promises to restore what you feel was stolen—status, security, cultural dominance—it can override what you see with your own eyes.
jul 6, 2025, 4:37 pm • 3 0 • view
It’s not just politically inconvenient—it’s psychologically threatening. It demands that people confront their own complicity, their susceptibility to manipulation, and the emotional needs that made them vulnerable. It’s easier to say, “I was tricked” than “I ignored the truth because it felt good.”
jul 6, 2025, 4:37 pm • 5 0 • view
A simply answer would be they are suckers. But certainly it’s more complex. How does anyone end up in a cult? Why do people embrace cruelty? For me it’s akin to some criminal acts. Reasonable people can never understand why. And those who commit the acts can’t explain it themselves.
jul 6, 2025, 3:52 pm • 0 0 • view