Great Minds Think Alike

After I wrote yesterday's blog entry, an odd thing happened. The president decided that he agreed with me. I had argued that Georgia re-opening tomorrow (Friday) is way too early and very dangerous. At yesterday's task force briefing, the president said exactly that. Wow. Who woulda thunk it?

As yesterday's briefing unfolded, I realized another very strange thing. All of the folks who castigated me for being anti-Georgia-opening and called me a libtard, coward, and un-American were faced with the awful reality that President Donald Trump publicly agreed with me. If my blog entry had made me a cowardly libtard, what did that make the president?

This was truly a fascinating and unusual real-time study in cognitive dissonance and how individuals deal with it. People assumed that my anti-Georgia opening spiel would be at odds with their president "chomping at the bit" to re-open. They not only had to come full stop, they had to swivel their minds 180 degrees in very turbulent waters.

I intend to tackle the whole cognitive dissonance angle somewhere down the road while discussing why people cling to this president, but after yesterday's weirdness, I felt as if I should at least broach the subject.


A Fixed Faith

Trumpism, I think, is more of a faith than a political persuasion. Sit ardent MAGA folks down and ask them, in all seriousness, "What policy position by the president would result in his losing your support?" Then reach into your pocket and start your stopwatch. There will be a long, interminable pause. The kind of pause that tells you (1) they haven't considered such a thing, (2) they have absolutely no idea what those deal-breaker policies might be, and (3) their loyalty to the president is a matter of faith, not facts.

When confronted with lies-as-cheerleading or sudden unexpected pivots of position (China, Kemp, Stormy), they don't really allow what's transpired in front of their eyes to affect their worldview. They simply shoehorn what they've experienced into the crystallized storylines of their faith.

For a good 30-something percent of the American public, science has become the enemy because it  contradicts the daily feel-good reality script the president imposes on the task force briefings. The president's supporters want to believe more than Fox Mulder, and science is in the way. So they ignore the science. This is, as Leon Festinger explored many years ago, what one should expect. In the years since Festinger's initial research, cognitive dissonance theory has been subsumed into other subfields. I have a feeling, though, that in the decades ahead, it's going to be dusted off when discussing this presidency.


Friday's Reality Show

Tomorrow, Gov. Brian Kemp re-opens Georgia without the presidential support he presumed he had 48 hours ago. This turn of events actually isn't all that surprising. The president's penchant for treating each day as a reality show episode should have prepped us for the episode-ending surprise. The assumed apprentice favorite is told he is to be fired, and we go on to the next installment. Same Trump time, same Trump channel.


April 23, 2020
Bob Dietz