canpakes wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 1:22 pm
If there were enough voting flat earthers, Trump would declare himself a flat earther.
I have not the slightest doubt about that. This is rather worrisome considering fact that, according to several sources I have looked at, the number of flat earth believers has actually been growing since 2009. I think Trump would rather appeal to conspiracy nuts like flat earthers than to people who tend to base their beliefs on sound, scientific evidence and reality, because the former are far more adamant in their beliefs than the latter, and thus harder to dissuade from mistaken beliefs once they have latched on to them. This is what Trump absolutely depends on--a base that is absolutely impervious to any evidence and reason that casts legitimate doubt on whatever he tells them. I suspect there are probably more flat earthers amongst Trump supporters than we realize, and their number is more likely to grow than shrink.
It’s not so much that people believe Trump so much as they want to believe that whatever they think is true. Trump recognizes that if he mirrors back the beliefs of the most vocal voting block, he’d likely be assured the necessary votes to win
To be sure! And the more he mirrors back those beliefs, the more confident they become in those beliefs, and the more people come to share them, and the more sycophantic supporters he acquires to whom he can reflect them back. Thus it like a malicious and destructive positive feedback loop.
Trump himself has few actual convictions and he’s not going to publicly reveal any of them if they’d prevent some vocal, angry and/or insecure cohort from supporting him.
Yes, this is why he invents and double and triple downs on so many lies. Hardly anything is more inconsequential to him than the truth, sometimes even when the truth actually helps him. All he is concerned about is what will get him elected and increase both his wealth and power. The lies are so obviously working for him.
In this way, Trump is the ultimate politician. Between this and his preoccupation with money and grift, he’s one of the most corruptible candidates we’ve seen in the past few decades.
So obviously true that it never ceases to amaze me how many (though still a minority) still can't or won't see that! That has been working so well for him, that he hardly even tries to hide it!
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.