Trump Supporters: The Blissful

Last time, I wondered why people still support Donald Trump. This time, I examine one reason for this phenomenon.

When it comes to human behavior I generally try to avoid reductive reasoning. Behavior is too complex and varied to be easily explained by one or two factors and I loathe ad hominem attacks (probably because my family resorts to reductio ad hitlerium the second I dare suggest government should take steps to deal with the runaway wealth inequality issue). With that being said, it has become increasingly apparent that people who continue to support Donald Trump at this point in time do so for three reasons (now, of course there are combinations of these three that create new reasons, but we’ll cover that later.  The first thing that leads people to continue to support Donald Trump is…

 

Ignorance is, as they say, bliss. After four years, it should be practically impossible to be ignorant of Donald Trump’s many failings, gaffes, and grotesqueries. I wish I could be, so I could get some of that sweet, sweet bliss. But unfortunately, I do pay attention and blissful ignorance eludes me. Yet there certainly are those who remain uninformed of many of the things the President has done. I suspect a number of them prefer to get all their news from ideologically sympathetic sources, and thus just don’t learn about these things at all. The wonderful thing about ignorance is that it can be fixed. 

Note: a person can act out of ignorance without being an ignorant person. Ignorance of one thing is not indicative of a general state of being ignorant. While this may seem like a minor distinction, it is important that a description of behavior not be mistaken for a condemnation of the person as a whole. 

A person who still supports Trump, only out of ignorance, will reach a rational conclusion when presented with enough information and facts. See, the beautiful thing about facts is that they don’t care about your opinion, they remain immutably true. Here are some facts about Donald Trump’s behavior as president.

• Claimed to have the largest inauguration in history, a claim quickly debunked  and leading to counsel Kellyanne Conway coining the term “alternative facts.” I really wish it ended here.

• Lied another 20,000+ times. Now some of these are just your typical political spin, but a good number of them are bold-faced, flat-out not correct in any way, shape or form lies. Lies like...

• Claiming he sent the national guard into Minneapolis which absolutely didn’t happen,Governor Tim Walz did that. 
• Saying “the Portland sheriff just came out today and said I support President Trump” which he didn’t, Sheriff Mike Reese said “I have never supported Donald Trump and never will support him.”
• Claiming he gave General James Mattis his nickname. 
• Telling military members he secured them their first pay increase in 10 years and that it was a 10% raise, even though the last time the military didn’t get an annual pay bump was 1961 and it was only a 2.6% increase.  
• Claiming to have been invited on to talk shows he’s never been invited to, and so on and so forth.

• Commuted the sentence of Roger Stone after Stone was convicted by a jury of lying under oath to congress, witness tampering and obstructing an investigation into… Donald Trump. 

• Cast doubt on the validity of the upcoming election outcome with no evidence the election was compromised. He then refused to accept the outcome of the election and ensure a peaceful transfer of power. 

• Referred to certain media outlets as “fake news”

• Called fallen American soldiers "losers" and "suckers"

• Delivered on only 24% of his campaign promises, less than half the number delivered by… Barack Obama. Including: failing to get Mexico to pay for the border wall, repealing the Affordable Care Act, and bringing back manufacturing to the U.S.

• Forced a top-level security clearance for daughter Ivanka and son-in-law JaredKushner, after a routine FBI background check deemed them security risks. Kushner later led the COVID-19 task force that asked members to falsify reports and models to paint a more favorable picture for the president. 

• Intentionally downplayed the risk of a global pandemic publicly, while privately knowing the risk was far greater than a common flu. He later ended up contracting the Coronavirus.

• Visited his properties 274 times and charged $1.1 million for secret service detail. 

• Posed with branded products in the oval office for a photo after CEO praised his leadership. 

I really feel like this photo says it all.

Now that’s not everything. There’s more, a lot more. But this does provide a good sample of the sort of problem behaviors Donald Trump has displayed as president. If someone was truly just ignorant of Trump’s many failings, then this list should be all it takes to show them that he is in fact unfit to lead the country. Because it should be damn near impossible to make a list with more than two examples of bad behavior for a qualified president. A rational person who is merely ignorant should look at that list, reach some independent conclusions and quickly realize how dangerous Donald Trump is to the presidency and America. 

The Presidency is a powerful and important position. Enacting favorable laws isn’t the only thing that should be taken into consideration when evaluating a person’s qualifications for the role. It is of critical importance the office be held to a high standard lest the republic… and I’m starting to get ahead of myself. 

Next time, I’ll explain another reason people support Trump, why a lot of these bad behaviors are in fact really bad, and why a President behaving badly is bad for the republic.