26

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "How is it a close race?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster points out a number of flaws in former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump such as his frequent failure to pay contractors, his cheating with a porn star, his modifying a weather map with a Sharpie, the way he kowtows to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his lies about election fraud, and asks how Trump supporters cannot see all of this. The original poster compares the situation to the "Emperor's New Clothes" fairytale in which everyone realizes the truth but is afraid to say it. The original poster is perplexed that this is even a close election given the numerous problems with Trump. Many Trump supporters respond by saying that they recognize Trump's personal flaws and don't really like his personality. However, they claim that they are supporting him because of policy issues. Frequently these posters cite immigration and the economy as areas where they belive Trump has better policies than Vice President Kamala Harris. A number of Trump supporters look back at Trump's previous presidency and suggest that he did a laudable job. Trump opponents point out that Trump accomplished very little as President. His legislative accomplishments were mostly limited to passing tax cuts which caused the national debt to skyrocket. He mishandled the COVID pandemic and never reached even 50% popularity. Given that all the posters in this thread participate in DCUM's political forum, they must have some interest in politics. Yet, many of the Trump supporters demonstrate that they are very poorly informed. Almost universally these posters are acting on the basis of "vibes". They perceive that things were better under Trump than they were under President Joe Biden and Harris but they struggle to support that perception with actual data. Their primary basis for this perception is higher prices and increased immigration. The fact that prices are higher as a result of the pandemic and that Republicans have repeatedly prevented immigration reforms is lost to them. During the Trump administration, Americans suffered shortages of toilet paper and other everyday goods. Automakers could not obtain chips to manufacture cars. The economy was on the brink of disaster. Biden and Harris turned this around and did it without massive unemployment. But Republicans still "feel" that things are worse now. In the face of the January 6th insurrection, Trump's admission that he will be a dictator on the first day, the anti-democratic Project 2025, and Trump's obvious infatuation with dictators, MAGA supporters have convinced themselves that Harris is a bigger threat to democracy. This is absolutely delusional. As the original poster stated, and I repeat almost daily, MAGA really is a cult.