Sadopolitics: Why MAGA clings tighter to Trump the more his policies hurt them

[marmar]

Sadopolitics: Why MAGA clings tighter to Trump the more his policies hurt them
Psychology helps to explain why Trump’s followers will not abandon him

By Chauncey DeVega
Senior Writer
Published March 27, 2025 6:57AM (EDT)


(Salon) Donald Trump’s budget cuts and the larger war on federal employees and government are not laser-targeted on Democrats, liberals, progressives or the other people and communities that he has deemed to be “the vermin” and “poison in the blood” of the nation who should be purged. Trump’s approach is broad, the political equivalent of carpet-bombing, and the casualties include Trump’s own MAGA people and red state parts of the country.

....(snip)....

Much of this news coverage and commentary, and the reactions to these stories online and elsewhere, is colored by liberal schadenfreude. The Trump supporters are mocked as getting their just rewards because they voted for a president who then fires them or otherwise causes them great harm. There is often shock and surprise that these same voters do not immediately turn against Trump, the MAGA movement or the Republican Party, even after they have been hurt by their Dear Leader.

....(snip)....

Donald Trump and other right-wing leaders and influentials command a vast propaganda and experience machine that consists of traditional news media such as TV, radio and print, websites, social media, podcasts, publishers, movies, sports, film, television, comedy, right-wing Christian churches, schools and “education,” interest groups, think tanks and other civil society organizations. For at least the last nine years (and decades before with the rise of Fox News and the right-wing echo chamber) this propaganda and experience machine has created an alternate reality that has emotionally trained and conditioned its public to be loyal to Trump, MAGA, and the larger right-wing “conservative” movement and to reject any outside information or influences (their much-hated “reality-based community”).

The American public is highly polarized politically (and socially). Politics is not “just” limited to voting and elections and other explicitly political matters such as support for a given public policy, law, candidate or party. Politics now encompasses many, if not most, aspects of American culture, from food to entertainment, dating, marriage, friendship networks, where one lives, religion and church attendance, and other aspects of day-to-day life. What political scientists describe as affective/negative polarization describes how political disagreements are increasingly existential value judgments where “the other side” is not just wrong but evil. In such an environment, changing one’s mind, by, for example, deciding to no longer support Trump’s policies, becomes less likely. ......................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/03/27/sadopolitics-why-maga-clings-more-to-the-more-his-policies-hurt-them/

[BComplex]

1. Poor and uneducated trump voters suffer from mental illnesses that haven't even made the books yet.

They're not yet woke. Even trump's cruelty can't wake them up.

[Aristus]

2. An inability to admit when one is wrong is a hallmark of poor intellectual development.

People who know nothing are able to convince themselves that they know everything.

[dutch777]

3. We've seen this all before. Germany was bombed into ruins and many people still held up Hitler as the great hope.

And I served in the army in Germany in the 1970s and remember somehow tripping into a conversation that touched on Hitler with a nice senior German lady that lived thru the war. One of her comments was something like "Yes, that was bad, but he made the trains run on time". I was a bit taken aback but she said it so calmly and matter of factly. And I remember as I was touring England after getting out of the army, and waiting for the 12: 15 train from somewhere to somewhere else, asking a station agent if the train pulling in was the 12:15 and he said no, this was the 11:55 train (late at 12:15) but to the same location and my ticket would work. I guess I looked a little confused and he said, "Hey, this isn't Germany".

[birdographer]

4. Interesting article

Basically it seems to not want to simply state that MAGA people are stupid, but it runs rings around itself saying pretty much that, in lots of other words. What I got out of it boiled down to “they are stupid.”

I also wonder what would happen with them if trump were, say, dispatched. He is their leader above all, they worship him, they believe he is human perfection and can do no wrong. What if he no longer existed? Has such a human deity ever lived and been worshiped before like this and then stopped being alive? Would they continue their worship of simply the memory of such a person? Or do they need actions and speeches?

Stupid, as I mentioned. Just IMO.

[sop]

5. Why do the religious cling more tightly to their beliefs despite their never-ending suffering?

Trump seems to be promising his followers his version of the afterlife. At some distant point in the future - after he's rid the country of all immigrants, eliminated all 'radical socialist Democrat' programs from their lives, replaced science and learning with superstition and stupidity, and turned this country into a rightwing theocracy - they will finally enter Trump Heaven. Have faith, MAGA!

[Paladin]

6. Because they're dumbfucks. Next question. (nt)