“What was he convicted of?” someone asked.
“He had tattoos on his body,” she replied triumphantly.
“Hey, smartass!” shouted a woman in her sixties, jumping to her feet. “You want to see my tattoo?”
“Lady,” the Trump supporter said. “You don’t know what a tattoo is.”
“Yes I do, I’ve got one!” the woman shouted, tapping her chest.
The Trump supporter dismissed her with a wave of one hand. “I’ve had enough of you Democrats,” she said.
Everybody on the right “likes what Trump is doing” or “Likes what DOGE is doing”, but when you ask them to articulate, specifically, what actions or policies they like, they will generalize to something the administration has claimed without evidence to be true but is difficult to prove or disprove (“He’s making the border safer”, “He’s getting rid of taxpayer waste”, etc.) or they will retreat from the question by attacking you personally or just saying that the vibes are generally better (“The tariffs will fix the economy”, “America is respected again”, etc.).
I’ve never once had a debate with a Republican who came prepared with sources to back up their claims. That’s because as soon as they try to dig and find evidence of the insane stuff Trump and Musk are peddling, the lie unravels itself and it just becomes easier to accept things at face value rather than think critically.
Here, let me translate for you:
“I like how he’s getting rid of all the brown people.”
“He’s doing things I like. That means he’s a good person. Good people are kind and generous.”
Given her age, I think it’s more likely that she’s just being fed nothing but pro-Trump propaganda in her Facebook feed. She scrolls through Facebook on her sticky phone covered in food crumbs liking boomer memes and pictures of grandchildren. If anyone knows her, the easy solution to save her from the propaganda is to sign her out of her account since she definitely doesn’t remember her password (and probably has like 3 accounts she’s made by accident)
It’s the same concept as when Nazis do Nazi things and claim they’re not Nazis. Nazi = bad, and they’re not bad, so they’re not Nazis.
Yeah. Ego, in the sense of the story about yourself that you tell yourself, is an extremely potent concept. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people get called out on their extremely shitty and deliberate choices and react with “I won’t take this, this isn’t fair, I’m a good person.” They actually believe that they are a good person, and good people don’t do bad things, so they’re being misunderstood and unfairly attacked. When the mirror is held up that attacks that narrative about themselves, it’s like an actual psychic pain, and people react almost like they’ve been physically attacked.
They say welding fumes can cause neurological damage…