Tag: Trump base

Denial and Defiance: Trump and His Base Downplay the Virus Ahead of the Election

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With resistance to face masks and scorn for science, President Trump and a sizable number of his supporters are pushing an alternate reality minimizing a tragedy that has killed almost 200,000 Americans.

Jodee Burton, a retired preschool teacher who now helps with her husband’s logging business, lives on a remote patch in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a state that has been embroiled in a partisan battle over how to respond to a pandemic that has killed nearly 7,000 people there and almost 200,000 nationwide.

Ms. Burton, 63, who is the mother of three grown children, is not convinced that there is a crisis — and she is certainly not happy with the efforts by her governor, Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, to require some people to wear masks or restrict where they can play and work.

“There’s only been three cases in Luce County and I know all three of them,” said Ms. Burton, whose family dog wears a Trump bandanna in place of a collar. “They have husbands and they sleep with these men every night, and none of them got it.” Continue reading.

A neuroscientist explains why Christian evangelicals are hardwired to believe Donald Trump’s lies

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump lies so often that it is no longer shocking when it happens, no matter how blatant or absurd the falsehood may be. Not only does Trump regularly exaggerate the truth, he frequently denies facts that can be observed directly from video or audio tapes. This has led some professionals to diagnose his lying as compulsive or pathological, and many psychologists have pointed out that he is constantly gaslighting his base—a term that refers to a strategic attempt to get others to question their direct experience of reality.

With so much evidence to contradict his claims, like having the largest inauguration crowd size despite pictures clearly showing otherwise, one must wonder how there are still people out there who believe anything the man says. But the fact of the matter is there are many who swallow it hook, line, and sinker. Most of his fervent supporters are convinced that Trump is the harbinger of truth when it comes to important issues like climate change—which is really just a “hoax perpetrated by the Chinese government”.

While this might sound laughable, it is a serious problem, as it has contributed to fake news and dangerous propaganda running rampant. Given its negative impact on society, it is important to understand why certain groups of people are more vulnerable to believing unsupported lies than others. For this, we must look to science for answers, and fortunately, the fields of psychology and neuroscience offer valuable insight. Continue reading

‘Trump’s base is a cult’: Rick Perry slammed after saying Donald Trump is ‘the Chosen One’ during Fox News interview

AlterNet logoRick Perry shocked some Fox News viewers when he announced during the weekend that Donald Trump was ‘sent by God’ to lead the country. The outgoing US Energy Secretary also told Fox & Friends’ hosts that President Trump was ‘the Chosen One.’

“God’s used imperfect people all through history,” Perry said, naming several Biblical figures. “King David wasn’t perfect, Saul wasn’t perfect, Solomon wasn’t perfect.”

The interview, which can be seen below, was met with scorn and derision. Here’s a sample:

Tim Miller

✔@Timodc

“A man too arrogant, too self-absorbed, to seek God’s forgiveness is precisely the type of leader John Adams prayed would never occupy the White House” – Rick Perry https://twitter.com/CourtneyHagle/status/1198654816928579584 …

Courtney Hagle@CourtneyHagle

Fox & Friends preview an interview with Rick Perry, where he says that Trump is “the chosen one” and “sent by God to do great things”

Pete Hegseth: “God has used imperfect people forever,” but what Trump “has withstood is unlike what really any other mortal could understand”

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View the complete November 25 article by Roxanne Cooper from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Suddenly Trump’s Base May See Unhappy Consequences Of His Rule

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing that President Donald J. Trump has done in the last several days was to use a faked weather map as a prop to justify his erroneous tweet about Alabama’s possibly being in the path of Hurricane Dorian. The alterations to the official “cone of uncertainty” from the National Hurricane Center were not only amateurish, but they were also — quite literally — criminal.

But that wasn’t the most stunning thing that Trump has done or said recently. Admittedly, rating the irrational moves of an increasingly unhinged chief executive involves lots of debate, many close calls and frequent concessions to personal bias, but my vote for most stunning move of late goes to the president’s insistence on building his infamous wall before next year’s presidential election, even if that involves criminal acts and the use of eminent domain.

According to The Washington Post, Trump has told his aides to pursue the wall at all costs: “Take the land,” he’s reportedly said. Ignore environmental regulations. And if his Cabinet officers and high-ranking aides must break the law to do it, Trump has strongly suggested he will issue presidential pardons.

View the complete September 8 article by Cynthia Tucker on the National Memo website here.

Under pressure from base, Trump falsely inflates administration’s progress on his border wall

The following article by David Nakamura was posted on the Washington Post website September 7, 2018:

President Trump at border-wall prototypes in March in San Diego. Credit: Evan Vucci, AP

As pressure mounts on President Trump to fulfill his key campaign pledge to build a border wall, he has hit on a quick and easy method to demonstrate progress: Just inflate how much his administration is already spending on the project.

Over the past week, including at a campaign rally Thursday night in Billings, Mont., Trump has begun boasting that he has spent $3.2 billion on the wall at the U.S.-Mexico border — twice as much as has been authorized by Congress.

“We’ve started the wall,” Trump told thousands of supporters at the event. “We’ve spent $3.2 billion on the wall. We’ve got to get the rest of the funding.” Later, he repeated the monetary figure and added: “We’ve done a lot of work on the wall. A lot of people don’t understand that.”

View the complete article here.

White Evangelical Women, Core Supporters of Trump, Begin Tiptoeing Away

The following article by Michael Tackett was posted on the New York Times website March 11, 2018:

Carol Rains, left, an evangelical Christian in Texas, doesn’t regret her vote for President Trump but would like to see another Republican run against him in 2020. Her friend Linda Leonhart agrees: “I will definitely take a look to see who has the courage to take on a job like this and do what needs to be done.” Credit: Allison V. Smith for The New York Times

GRAPEVINE, Tex. — Carol Rains, a white evangelical Christian, has no regrets over her vote for President Trump. She likes most of his policies and would still support him over any Democrat. But she is open to another Republican.

“I would like for someone to challenge him,” Ms. Rains said, as she sipped wine recently with two other evangelical Christian women at a suburban restaurant north of Dallas. “But it needs to be somebody that’s strong enough to go against the Democrats.” Her preferred alternative: Nikki R. Haley, the United Nations ambassador and former South Carolina governor.

One of her friends, Linda Leonhart, agreed. “I will definitely take a look to see who has the courage to take on a job like this and do what needs to be done,” she said. Continue reading “White Evangelical Women, Core Supporters of Trump, Begin Tiptoeing Away”

Trump’s budget cuts hit his base — rural voters

The following article by Victoria McGrane was posed on the Boston Globe website March 16, 2017:

Some of the biggest losers in President Trump’s proposed budget are the rural communities that fueled his stunning White House victory.

Funding that keeps rural airports open, grants that help build rural water and sewer projects, and money for long-distance Amtrak lines that serve rural communities would all disappear under Trump’s budget blueprint released Thursday.

Trump also wants to kill the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps people, including seniors on fixed incomes and the working poor, to pay their heating bills. It’s a particularly prized resource in New England, with its brutal winters. Continue reading “Trump’s budget cuts hit his base — rural voters”

An Open Letter Of Thanks To Trump Voters From The Billionaires

The following article by @LOLGOP was posted on the National Memo website March 13, 2017:

Dear Joe,

Sorry, if your name isn’t actually Joe, Joe. But that’s what we call anyone who isn’t in the top 1 percent. “Joe the Plumber” liked it so much that he still lets us call him that, even though his first name is Samuel. “Samuel the Plumber” sounds like a character from kids’ book about a precocious yet handy mouse. Joe got that. He’s a good Joe and so are you, Joe.

Anyway, we just wanted to say a quick thanks for voting for Donald Trump without paying nearly any attention to what his actual policies would be. It’s the least we can do, given that you’ve already done so much for us.

Whether we enjoy restoring natural coal-flavoring to river water or seeing the cabinet stocked with our fellow billionaires and buddies from Goldman Sachs, it’s the little things — like being allowed to destroy the climate so we can be a tiny bit richer — that we appreciate so very much. Continue reading “An Open Letter Of Thanks To Trump Voters From The Billionaires”