"It doesn't matter!" That's a phrase we must remember when assessing MAGA cultists.

[Atticus]

Tell them that everyone with a pulse understands that Trump is a lying racist grifter who was willing to destroy our nation for a price and their response---and ignorant attitude---is "It doesn't matter!"

Trump's "It's a hoax!" nonsense cost at least hundreds of thousands of Americans---most of them his supporters---their lives. "It doesn't matter!"

Trump never "built the wall" and Mexico was never going to pay for one. "It doesn't matter!"

Not one shred of actual evidence has ever been presented to support Trump's insistence that the 2020 election was "stolen . "It doesn't matter!"

These people simply DO NOT CARE about facts or truth and they cannot be shamed. Time spent "reaching out" to these mindless Morlocks is totally wasted. They must be forced to go back "underground".

[cutroot]

1. They are proud of the fact that he gets away with it

They are not ashamed at all. They think that it makes him look savvy and tough. He takes advantage of his cult and uses them to further his own greed. They are lost. It may take many years for some of these people to return to their senses if they ever do

[gab13by13]

2. I agree 100% Atticus,

I live among them and I learned a long time ago not to debate with them because they can only drag you down into the mud where they are experts.

They don't always say it doesn't matter, many times they counter with bogus, nonsensical arguments. They believe the nonsense.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Funny that these people pretty well kiss off the rule of law, and ignore it, while doing their

shenanigans. If this is how they want to play, then I say that Garland needs to start charging the whole swath of them w/ insurrection crimes and quit pussyfooting. They are basically doing a slow step insurrection against this Country.

[Doc Sportello]

4. All true and it leads to only one conclusion

That we are dealing with a cult. And it's not a cult of a few or of thousands, but of millions who vote and intimidate and use violence.

[Lonestarblue]

11. It's a cult created by Fox News and then exploited by Trump, who pushed them further to insanity.

Republicans started creating this mass of uneducated followers beginning with Reagan. They used to hide their hateful rhetoric in dog whistles, but Trump waged a war on what he called political correctness and brought all the hate out of hiding. Now we’re left to deal with millions of irrational people who prefer lies to truth and subscribe to every conspiracy theory some whackadoodle can concoct.

[Upthevibe]

5. Kick. N/T

[Grumpy Old Guy]

6. K&R

[LeftinOH]

7. People will remain loyal to their team no matter how bad the season..

[ancianita]

8. The real question about Trump is what DOES matter to them about him. The racism? The love of

dictators? Whatever it is that does matter, we've had enough evidence from him to see his voters' world view.

What people who live under autocratic state government say, or even won't admit, is that they're willing to live with it.

[Whiskeytide]

12. I have come to believe that 70% of his support comes ...

… from the simple fact that he triggers the Left. We hate him, and they love that.

Racism
Misogyny
Corruption
Incompetence

They love him for such things because we hate him for them. They might not actually like those characteristics independently, but they love the way we react when he exhibits them.

[ancianita]

13. Sure.

But loving what we hate isn't a life strategy. What kind of life comes out of that, anyway?

Is it fear of liberals' love of rights for others? Fear of equality under the law such that they see others' increased rights as less for them? Or do they confuse money and privilege with freedom? To me, that shapes up to look like a fearful life.

A fearful life of gun buying and endorsing the 'thinning of the herd,' and not even caring if some of them die along with those they hate -- or want to 'own.'

[Whiskeytide]

14. I agree. It's a miserable life strategy. But I live ...

… among them, and that pure “team politics” is what I see. They really don’t think critically about most of what goes on around their existence, and view all things in very absolute terms. It’s blue v red - no purple.

Don’t get me wrong. Many are friends, and in a lot of ways are quite decent people. They often have great empathy and genuine concern in situations where someone has suffered a loss. But they are generally incapable of drawing any line between their politics and the bad stuff they encounter. The separation of families at the border was a great example. They thought the stories from families that suffered that atrocity were -anecdotally- horrific. But their support for Тяцмp remained unchanged.

They vote for an asshole because he’s on their team. When asshole shit happens, they just don’t see the connection. The disconnect is unreal.

[ancianita]

16. Cool. I'll add

to this mix that my apolitical daughter, who used to be a voting Democrat, now believes that our side is guilty of the same things since we design and collect fact sources to fit our world view, even to the point of having baseless fears, in her opinion. She says we're just as much in an MSDNC news bubble as FOX folks. We know the factual difference between their news models, of course, but she does have a point about corporate control of what facts are presented and how they're interpreted. We gripe all the time about NYT and other mainstream sources, as I'm sure you know.

So I ask my daughter (a GenX'er in her 50's, if that has any bearing on this) to send me sources that she uses for "information" that she claims challenge liberal thinking -- stuff about climate change, mortality rates from Covid, and how money and the Fed drive policy, how even the Biden admin is theater.

Here on DU, we engage in a lot of "being right" and mocking here, but need to still listen to where the other side gets its ideas.

I'd recommend reading this guy, Norman Finkelstein, or some pieces about his latest book. I just came across him, and he's a bit of a puzzle. He's the Right's idea of an intellectual, and he does have good education credentials. I have a couple of Black friends in academia who are taking him seriously, so I thought I'd keep an open mind. If anyone else reads him, I'd be interested in what they think about his take on the Left.

[Whiskeytide]

17. I'll try to look him up. I often think about the correlations between ...

… the red and blue teams, and how those of us on the Left sometimes get caught up in the same “game”. It’s hard not to play, even when it seems clear that there really cannot be a winner.

[ancianita]

18. Cool. Gotta say that wikipedia's entry on him is weak, tho'.

Good point about how we get caught up in the same games, and stoop to acting just like the Right. We have to fight that mocking or spiteful tendency, imo, especially when it might be construed as being sore winners.

[Hieronymus Phact]

9. Try ridicule and laughter.

"Ridicule the ridiculous" ridicule has a place in society and this is it.

[OMGWTF]

10. Shorter version: IOKIYAR

For those in the back it’s an acronym for It’s OK if you’re a Republican.

[keep_left]

15. Not only did Trump *not* build his "big, beautiful wall", but when Steve Bannon defrauded...

...Trump's followers out of tens of millions of dollars in a moronic private financing scam for the border wall, Trump pardoned him!

Even that doesn't matter to Trump's cult followers.

[ancianita]

19. And...

when U.S. House Rep Jim Jordan and other Republicans scoured the Southern border, they didn't find any illegal crossings.

[uponit7771]

20. K&R

[GoodRaisin]

21. I would suggest modifying that phrase, slightly.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m getting mine”.

Cut off their Social Security or Medicare and they’d sing a different tune.