Yes. More specifically, it was the product of an inability to exercise critical, objective judgement, and a preference for wild speculation and fantasy over plausibility.
It‘s a testament to a changed Republican Party that if you debate with a Trump supporter on the internet, the conversation won’t be about America‘s proper role in the world, public debt, specifics about deregulation and tax policy, trade policy or immigration policy in general. Instead, many interactions quickly start to revolve around the idea that there‘s a corrupt Deep State, that Democrats are all criminals, that the Wall Street Journal and Forbes are socialist outlets because they‘re not controlled by Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson, that the US is producing biological weapons in Ukraine, that every charge, legal prosecution or indictment of Trump has to be lawfare of a corrupt government, or that there‘s a Davos-based globalist masterplan for a world government and only Trump wants to stop it… where does it end?
How can you have a political conversation with people who live in that kind of parallel reality? Once there, I suppose, there‘s no coming back from it.
@CedricH read my updated response above. You have no say in our elections and domestic policies. International affairs are different...we're sick of paying for your defense bill.
@BizSuitStacy Weren’t you the one who claimed the Keystone XL executive order caused the jump in oil prices after 2020? 😂 That‘s a first rate example of your alternate facts. Anyways, I perfectly comprehend why she lost, if it had been Nikki Haley on the other side, I would‘ve enthusiastically supported the Republicans but alas, that wasn’t the case. Still, I‘m very cognizant of the Democrat‘s weaknesses and liabilities.
@CedricH 🥱 Your memory is leaking...I was the one who said the XL pipeline was the first domino that kicked off inflation. You can mark it to the ink drying on the EO. That's the point at which the US became dependent on foreign oil again.
And after I shared the graph above, you doubled down with a lie claiming inflation was well under way before Biden took office...oops
Never heard back from you after that.
But I want to hear more about your conspiratorial worldview delusions, since the conspiracy theorists are way ahead 165-0.
I think that's just one of the symptoms... To me the real causes life in ignorance... Relying on some bites as news and information, belief in what they hear without finding out if it's true. Sure there are many problems that need fixing but the answers are never simple but it's simple answers that are being promised.
@Patriot96 Everyone said so. He was the better candidate of all of the better candidates. They are all saying that. No one has ever been a better candidate. Bigly.
He is so good he was ranked as the absolute worst president in 245+ years of American history just 4 years ago.
I don't think anyone would call them worldviews. Most of MAGA is uneducated and will believe ANY conspiracy theory about anything...........but "world" is pretty far reaching for those that mostly are so poor financially they have left their own state.
@whowasthatmaskedman EXACTLY my point. Inflation in the U.S. was less that 1/10 than it was in about half of the countries on the globe.........but to the hillbillies if the gas station down on the corner was charging $3.00 a gallon...it was OMFG look what Biden is doing to us. No concept of how good we have it.
@MaBalzEsHari And they accuse everyone else of drinking the koolaid. They conveniently forgot that it was Americans following another American who drank the original Koolaid..
The crazy conspiracy theories that have duped many people, particularly over the last decade or so, are no less crazy than the blatant lies western governments have told to their citizens for many decades anyway. Conspiracy theories are just the bonkers flip side to the mainstream narrative of lies, manipulation and subterfuge peddled by western governments since the end of WW2. At this point, I find the ludicrous conspiracy theories no more offensive or insane than anything the previous government tells me every night on the news. The USA has simply decided to elect the conspiracy lunatics instead of the lying manipulators.
I'd say so. He's been setting up conspiracy theories for ten years now, or close enough. From birtherism to the White House and back. The climate has grown more and more hostile to traditional news sources and narratives. Trump has benefited from the distrust he has sown. It can't last forever. The truth will out.
@Alyosha I‘m afraid truth won’t matter unless it hits people in their faces. I‘m not overly confident that it will, it might if Trump follows his worst instincts.
@Confined The only reason why I still engage in this exchange of meaningless comments is that I‘m curious how low you want to sink with your responses to my comments. People of your intellect have a tendency to amuse me when they spout out their invectives on the internet.
@JimboSaturn Yeah… gone are the days of a country club Republican Party where the leaders of the Republican youth wear khakis and silently work as aids and staffers for traditional Senators or Congressmen… now their highest aspiration is to become the next right-wing influencer celebrity. Vice President’s can now wear beards, people with piercings and face tattoos or pro-wrestlers publicly endorse Republicans at RNC events… the party really left me behind but apparently won over enough other people to compensate for people who share my level of disillusionment.
@CedricH That's so true! No one wants to be a real politician anymore where they will have to work and think and serve the public. They just want to be influencers and famous. That is just a reflection of the dumbification of western culture.
@TrashCat It‘s not so much that people clash because divisive cultural issues are more prominent now than they were during prior campaigns, what changed is that everything is now about your political identity. One day before the election the economy was bad … why? Because the wrong man was in office, the day after the election people who felt great about the economy before change their minds and vice versa. It‘s more than partisanship it‘s the clash between two adversarial political identities.
