I remember in the early days when I'd read what his supporters were writing/saying and my internal optimist would tell me that, when reality set in, they'd learn at least a bit about the error of their ways. It never happened.
I also watched as Trump's sexism, racism, cruelty, and narcissism were put right out there in the open - constantly thinking that his latest outrage (ie, "grab 'em by the p*ssy) would finally lead to his demise. It never happened.
We just watched Trump close out his 2024 campaign by promising to take revenge against the "enemies within," parrot Hitler by referring to immigrants as "vermin" who are "poisoning the blood" of our country, and promising to be a dictator on day one. As an added bonus, he talked about Arnold Palmer's penis and pretended to perform fellatio on a microphone. I assumed that he'd lose support. It didn't happen.
So now we're preparing for Trump's return to the White House with his determination to wreck the economy via mass deportation and tariffs. If, as everyone suggests, his re-election was all about "the price of eggs is too high," we're tempted to believe that soaring inflation and a recession (or depression) will surely turn his supporters against him. Right?
Not so fast. The first check on that is to remind ourselves that the Covid pandemic surged during Trump's presidency and we experienced the worst recession of our lifetimes. Not only did we all feel the economic pain, millions of people died because he totally bungled this country's response. What did his supporters do? They blamed China, Fauci, and science. Then they went on to blame Biden as he successfully cleaned up Trump's mess.
To understand how that happens, it is helpful to remember what Julian Sanchez wrote about epistemic closure on the right. He noted that when he injected that phrase into our political discourse, a lot of people thought he was simply talking about an echo chamber or closed mindedness. But it's more complex than that.
So an “echo chamber” just means you never hear any contrary information. The idea of “epistemic closure” was that you WOULD hear new and contrary information, but you have mechanisms in your belief system that reject anything that might force you to update your beliefs…
I bring this up now, because the Trump ecosystem has developed a pretty sophisticated set of epistemic closure mechanisms that work to reject new information that might otherwise pose a problem.
The closure mechanisms Trump set up to inoculate his followers include his references to things like the deep state, fake news, and the swamp. When fact-checkers expose Trump’s lies, it is just fake news. When former administration officials decry the president, they are part of the deep state.
Trump's narcissistic personality disorder has led him to develop a delusional system for dealing with the realitiy of his failures. As I noted shortly after he took office in 2017, it can be summarized as "lie, distract, and blame." We need look no further than his Big Lie after the 2020 election as an example. He lied about voter fraud, distracted with references to the great replacement theory, and blamed Democrats.
The problem that we all face now is that a large portion of the electorate has bought into Trump's personality disorder. They have adopted his set of epistemic closer mechanisms to shut off the reality of his failures. To put an exclamation point on that, let's remember than one of Trump's most effective strategies during the 2024 campaign was to ask people whether they're better off today than they were 4 years ago when refrigerated trucks were being used as morgues and lines for food banks were miles long. Astoundingly, too many voters said "no." That is delusion created by epistemic closure.
What we're going to have to grapple with is that, when Trump tanks the economy this time around, he will once again roll out his lie, distract, and blame strategy. Since I don't suffer from narcissistic personality disorder, it's hard for me to forecast what that will look like. But I have no doubt that it will happen. My concern is that his supporters will believe him and rather than holding him accountable, they'll unleash more hate on those the president choses to blame.
With all my heart I hope I'm wrong. But for almost 10 years now I've been learning the hard way that the one time Trump told the truth was when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and his supporters wouldn't abandon him.
None of this is meant to suggest capitulation to the very real danger Trump poses. It's just that we have to start by understanding what we're dealing with.
My dad was a malignant narcissist like Donald Trump. My dad would blame my mom for all of his failures; he was perfect end of story. She divorced him 36 years ago and she still suffers from lack of self-confidence (i.e. second guesses everything, asks for my help to do things instead of trusting herself, etc.). Now, multiply that by millions of people and you can see what Nancy is talking about when she says that she is worried about how it's going to go when Trump inevitably fails again. Personally, I am totally terrified.
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