thinkprogress.org/…
Judd Legum from Think Progress wrote this great article more than two years ago. My brother and I talked for hours about the problem with Trump’s ability to lie to his fans and to the world without his fans ever being remotely concerned that something wasn’t true. Even if they know it’s untrue, they don’t care.
They’ve been predicting his imminent downfall for months. Every “gaffe” that was supposed to destroy his support has only made him stronger. “DON VOYAGE: Trump Toast After Insult,” a headline in the New York Post blared nearly two months ago. The insult at issue, questioning John McCain’s military service, is so many insults ago that it isn’t even mentioned any more.
When Al Franken used to have a radio show, he would have his childhood friend, “Dittohead Mark” come on and answer questions. They’d go through a clip of Limbaugh, and Al would ask his friend if he knew that some fact was untrue. Mark would invariably say something like, “Yeah, but I get the point he’s making.” Sometimes, Mark would just say, “Yeah, but he’s just being hyperbolic.”
(Roland Barthes’)... most famous essay, published in his 1957 book Mythologies, focuses on professional wrestling.
This type of thinking is so common among GOP voters that they will simply refuse any information that they don’t already “know”.
Ask a GOP voter where they learned about climate change, or where they learned about healthcare. They’ll almost never give you any sources, because they’ve either just heard it from someone, or they’re aware that their source is completely biased, and uses inaccurate information to form conclusions.
Many of us go through this frustrating process when we unwisely engage with GOP voters who just don’t care about facts.
Judd writes about how Barthes compares pro wrestling with boxing. Obviously, organized boxing has issues with corruption, but that’s a separate story.
The professional wrestling fan doesn’t care about a fair contest with a reliable outcome. The pro wrestling fan is there for the emotional thrill. Most fans know that it’s not real, but they still say things to wave that off, because they don’t care about facts.
The pro wrestling fan is there for the feelings. He’s there for the emotional attachment, not the level headed management of a fair competition.
The most salient paragraph has Barthes explaining this phenomenon. (bold print from Judd)
This public knows very well the distinction between wrestling and boxing; it knows that boxing is a Jansenist sport, based on a demonstration of excellence. One can bet on the outcome of a boxing-match: with wrestling, it would make no sense. A boxing- match is a story which is constructed before the eyes of the spectator; in wrestling, on the contrary, it is each moment which is intelligible, not the passage of time… The logical conclusion of the contest does not interest the wrestling-fan, while on the contrary a boxing-match always implies a science of the future. In other words, wrestling is a sum of spectacles, of which no single one is a function: each moment imposes the total knowledge of a passion which rises erect and alone, without ever extending to the crowning moment of a result.
The most illustrative example I can give about this is about Trump’s worth.
He said he is worth 10 billion dollars. His voters claim they voted for him because he’s a good businessman. His bankruptcies mean nothing to them. The Trump voters who venture out into the real world really think that a bankruptcy is fine, and that it’s just a normal part of business. They’ve rationalized those as “successes” instead of failures.
Again, he says he’s worth 10 billion dollars, and yet, there is no way to independently verify that, because he won’t disclose his tax returns.
His fans- “Meh, he’s still really rich.” (I get the point..)
Another stunning example I experience is when I show them the picture of Moammar Gaddafi’s actual Libyan tent set up on Trump’s lawn just 8 years ago. Trump rented his estate to Gaddafi, because Trump had “uneven access to lending”.
They simply don’t care. Even if a Trumpco supporter is arguing that Hillary and Obama were in cahoots with Gaddafi (or whatever it is they say), they will simply reject the easily demonstrable fact, or they will accommodate it by saying that Trump was just being a good businessman.
We really need look no further than the CNN wrestling meme. His fans didn’t care that it was fake. It made them feel the way they like to feel about Trump.
This single article would be my deserted island reading list on Trump if I could only take one.
The more Trump does, the more this article is exactly right. I’ve shared it dozens of times on Twitter at this point.