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Comment by JeremyNT | Hacker News Reader

A truism, but:

There are a lot of Trump supporters on HN. More data points that highlight how incompetent or corrupt this administration is might eventually sway them.

Midterm and special elections are real points where negative stimuli could occur. If polling gets bad enough, swing state Republican politicians might start sweating sooner.

So maybe for you this is just obvious confirmation of what you already know. But by reporting and following up on this story, maybe some people will learn and understand something they did not before.

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Trump supporters are unswayable. The same rule about negative stimulus applies. Nothing you can say makes a difference, but if they start losing money eventually they might change behavior. Or they radicalize further.

It's just odd to me.

I mean, yeah the Democrat party sucks.

Here's this "macho tough guy" that wears a diaper, lifts, and makeup...who's famous for bankrupting a casino (twice), and was known for decades as a cartoon character, a clown, a moron. They hear the "on day 1" promises that won't ever get resolved. They see what happened the last time this guy took the wheel.

And they want more of it? Unswayable indeed.

I thought America was immune from fascism because it generally took the form of an idiotic leader that had charisma. I thought my fellow countrymen and countrywomen were smarter than that. Of all the people to succumb to, it's this fucking guy? Seriously?

If people you respect are swayed, ask yourself (or better: them) what they see that you don't. I doubt it's a matter of intelligence, so much as perspective.

If no one you respect has been swayed, you should know: the other side is making the same baffled judgements about you.

The usual answer is some mix of, I like his policies, he tells it like it is, and the Democrats are worse.

Sounds good but makes little sense. He contradicts himself constantly. Anyone will find policies of his that they can agree with, because he covers the spectrum. You want strict gun control and universal government health care? He’s your guy. You’re a 2A absolutist and think health care should be totally unregulated? Trump is your man! Likewise with “tells it like it is.” I’m convinced that his popularity is mostly due to the fact that he just spews so much crap. If you manage to only hear the parts you like, you’ll think he’s great.

“The Democrats are worse” could be sensible, but it’s almost always based on a notion of Democrats that’s completely disconnected from reality.

Do you anticipate that someone is going to tell you, specifically, that they do not support rabid DEI, some of the highest tax rates in the world, widespread and severe drugs, poverty, and homelessness, endless war, vote dilution through importation of new voters, calling a random sample of political nemeses rapists and racists, and now, painting Swastikas on vehicles? Do you truly both believe that is disconnected from reality, and that someone would reveal this in a conversation with you?

I’ve heard most of that. And yeah, it’s pretty disconnected from reality.

Rabid DEI? Mythical.

Highest tax rates in the world? No we don’t. And did you notice that this guy just enacted a massive tax hike? Voting Trump for lower taxes is idiotic.

Drugs, poverty, war? Trump has no effective plan to fight any of these.

Importation of new voters? Why do Republicans assume immigrants are automatic Democratic votes? Hispanic culture is pretty socially conservative. Those millions of people coming in over the southern border should be an easy demographic for the Republican Party to recruit.

Rapists and racists? When you support a rapist and racist to run the country, expect that to be criticized. And aren’t Republicans supposed to be all about “free speech”? But oh no, somebody called me names, it’s awful.

Genuinely, thanks for your response.

If a political party ships innocent people off to concentration camps without due process and promises to take over allied nations by any means necessary — and someone supports that party despite, or even because of, those policies — then there is nothing left to see or to understand. You hate {DEI|taxation|government waste|woke culture} so much that you're willing to upend democracy and centuries-old alliances just to see it gone? OK. It's a matter of axiomatically incompatible worldviews at that point.

Moreover, cults of personality are shockingly common. Many people simply do not reason themselves into their political positions. Probe their beliefs beyond surface level and there's no consistency beyond "ingroup good, outgroup bad."

Or many of them are some combination of racists, care about gun rights over everything else, religious folks who think that protesting Isreal will result in the second coming of Christ, anti-choice, and something something woke.

When people sincerely believe that if the country gives gay people rights that it will cause the nation to burn in hell, there isn’t any convincing people.

It’s baffling. I sort of get why some people like strongmen. Hitler and Mussolini fought and bled for their country. Stalin and Mao led armies to victory. They were bad people but I can’t deny that they were strong in some sense.

But Trump? A middling businessman and second-rate TV star nobody would have ever heard of if he hadn’t been born rich? He has zero credentials for this. What gives?

> the Democrat party sucks

> And they want more of it [Trump]?

Those two things are closely related. Who votes for inffectual, feckless, cowards, who are hiding from the crisis?

This is not a grounded critique. It is unbalanced and lacking in insight.

Lacking in insight?

My brother in christ......Donald Trump wears makeup. How many actual "tough guys" do you know that wear makeup?

Back in the days of my parents, a fat guy with lifts and orange makeup would have been called a (anti-gay slur) and would have been the butt of every joke.

He's bankrupted 2 casinos, failed to sell football steaks airlines and liquor to Americans, he shits himself and wears a diaper, and is so intellectually deficient that me, an autistic guy, could run circles around him in debate.

Yet somehow, he's seen as a "business genius". HA!

Okay. Let’s say you have a compelling and coherent argument. Where can I go to read more about each of the things you write of, and share community with like-minded people?

Reddit. Twitter. Bluesky. Facebook probably.

The dems paid an insanely heavy cost to appease the 1% of the population that is chronically on twitter. They lost mountains of votes to trump over that.

You speak oddly of people like they are monolithic and lacking perceptive nuance (more like animals than any people I know). In the US, of all places, there is tremendous heterogeneity. What are the key elements that you know of “they”?

I think it’s safe to say that there is severe overfitting and pattern matching behavior involved. When I come across someone who says something so broadly judgmental and unfounded, I become immediately intrigued as to how this person is either exploiting or exploited, one of which is assured. I hope you are doing okay.

> Trump supporters are unswayable.

You fell for the aggression tactic - it's just a cheap negotiating / political tactic. Act hyperagressive and some will believe you are unstoppable, implacable, etc.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43561401

There’s a core cult (not pejorative) that's unswayable, but that’s not who handed him political power. It was the politically disaffected people who he managed to reach and Dems failed to.

It’s worth speaking to those folks.

> Trump supporters are unswayable.

While they certainly love the guy, this is demonstrably untrue.

Otherwise, we wouldn't have had a President Biden interregnum.

Some degree of incompetence is certainly a bridge too far, at least for some of his supporters.

We're not unswayable, I was swayed.

8 years ago, I was a left-libertarian living in SF and trying to convince Trump people to vote for Hillary because Trump was dishonest.

Then I was swayed because people provided information to me that changed my views. Now I view what Trump is doing now as FAR too moderate.

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