READING TIME: 5 Minutes
SUMMARY: That the mental health of Americans has suffered mightily during Trump’s Reign of Turmoil is evident. The chaos that he has wrapped the nation and world is has caused distress, doubt, and distrust amongst us all. Billions suffer because of him. Yet, there is hope. His voice like grip on MAGA may finally be weakening. Even their cognitive dissonance cannot withstand the challenges of inflation, tariffs, the Epstein Files, and war with Iran.
KEY WORDS: Trump, Reign of Turmoil, Mental Health, #GOPDystopia, Cynicism, Withdrawal, Cognitive Dissonance, Epstein Files, Tariffs, Inflation, War with Iran
COMMENT: How does MAGA react to the disappointments of Trump 1.0? Can their cognitive dissonance contain these contradictions?
In the #GOPDystopia most of us are feeling hopeless, helpless, and harrowed. From the Epstein cover up to Epstein Fury, from state murders in Minnesota to mass shootings in, well, everywhere, from distrust in government, media, and our neighbors to disgust with our government, media, and our neighbors. And, we have to constantly worry about another insurrection whether by people literally storming the capitol a la a redux of the 6 January Insurrection to ballots literally being stolen a la the groundless warrant issued for the FBI raid on the Fulton County voting records. Stress, strain, and struggle seems to be the forecast for our indefinite future.
In short, our politics is trashing our mental health, but there is hope. There have been cracks forming in the MAGA base during first year of the Stable Jenius’ second term. Are they real, illusory, or delusional? Dunno, but they seem to be there and are enough to suggest that this stubborn turd of an administration that is floating at the top of the nation’s toilet bowl may be ready to be flushed. First, we’ll dig into the damage that’s been done, and then we’ll do how things just might could be getting better.
Our Crazy-Making Politics
No one should be surprised that our politics is causing us all to feel just a bit crazy. We’re all living it, and, if you’re like me — I know ma! No body’s like me, but let’s just go with it this once… Damned restless ghost! — you realize the toll it’s taking. But, just like Galileo needed to drop his famous balls off of the Leaning Tower of Pisa to test Aristotle’s theory that heavier weights fall faster than light ones — an idea that still confounds many today — science needs to test our assumptions no matter how sure we are of them. So, science to the rescue!
Most of what follows comes from a DAME Magazine article that you are encouraged to read. Material from other sources will be linked to.
The Halcyon Days of Trump 1.0
Back in the halcyon days of Trump 1.0, many liberals reported that the nation’s politics were taking a toll on their physical health and were overly stressed out. We all remember the chaotic days of Trump’s reign of error. We had the Muslin Band playing the first year, poorly managed natural disasters throughout — the embarrassing tossing of paper towels incident comes to mind — the heroic BLM protests and glorification of the murderer, Kyle Rittenhouse, and shambolic #COVID19 pandemic response that resulted in two million unnecessary deaths. The catastrophies seemed endless. It was death and destruction all the time — mass shootings and cops killing Black folks.
The endless stress bathed our brains in cortisol and other stress hormones. It was like that awful Pledge dish soap commerical where Madge, the nail tech reassures the costumer that she’s soaking in it. All of that stress pickled us, especially, MAGA into mass psychosis: they would literally believe anything and could do no more than accept the most simplistic solutions for complex problems.
The Hopeless Hapless Generation: Gen Z
Gen Z has been found to view the world and politics more cynically and negatively. They feel less agency, like they cannot change the world. And, who can blame them? Baby Boomers ended the Viet Nam War, brought us a real live multicultural democracy for the first time in our nation’s history with Civil Rights legislation. Gen X tamed the deficit and ended the Cold War. Millennials elected the first Black President, got women equal pay for equal work, and the ACA. But all Gen Z haas known is the Great Recession and the Trump’s reign of turmoil. And, like the turd that just won’t flush, Trump by some evil miracle is elected AGAIN! No wonder they feel like they can’t win for losing.
More than any other generation, Gen Z is lacks any real motivation to participate in society and politics. Overall, they are less trusting of government, less satisfied with democracy, and think that government doesn’t represent people like them.
However, it’s not just Gen Z. Our politics have activated the fight, fight, or freeze reaction from many. Luckily, once your primary response to fear and stress proves ineffective — think the deer in the headlights making a mad dash for it — you switch to another. While fighters may have already given way to flight or freeze, the flighters or freezers are coming into fighting. Negative emotions can be motivating.
The sobering thought, and the one that nearly did me in a year ago, was that there is a persistent anti-democratic authoritarian vein that runs through the nation. These people will always be with us. The best we can hope for is to chase them under the refrigerators and scatter them when we turn on the light as we go for a drink in the middle of the night. Worse though are the meh-voters, the people who are so disengaged that they can be easily persuaded to vote for a toxic mess like Trump not just once, not twice, but three times. Talk about depressing! Who votes for Obama, then switches to Trump, votes for Biden, and then switches BACK to Trump? Who sits out an election after Trump was elected twice? It is maddening.
Well, there is hope peeking around the corners of the dark center that we’re living through.
Breaking Through the Cognitive Dissonance of MAGA
It has long been common knowledge that El Gordito Naranja’s base is around 35%. Trump’s approval rating never seems to slip below that point. It doesn’t matter how fucked things become, THOSE people seem to think all of his farts smell like chocolate. Well, that my friends, is cognitive dissonance at work: your ability to convince yourself that you’re right no matter how much evidence that your wrong has spilled down upon you.
Luckily, science has some answers for us here, too. Most of this section will be taken from a Psychology Today article, and other information will be linked to as needed.
MAGA is frustratingly loyal to El Touche de Merde, making excuses for him, contorting logic into Gordian knots to sane wash his contradictions. Science warns us that ideas learned during emotionally charged moments are difficult to change. And, as we’ve seen, Republicans have kept their base emotionally charged for decades with divisive cultural issues. The constant fear, anger, and anxiety keeps the amygdala active and the associations, memories, and learned ideas reified. This shit has been cast in concrete.
Making matters worse is the social support MAGA has for their wrongheaded ideas. The media and social bubbles they live in makes it seem like there is widespread agreement with them and that they are immensely popular. There is the illusion of consensus. BTW, for all of us that were blindsided by Harris’ loss, we were suffering from the same phenomenon.
Causes of MAGA’s Cognitive Dissonance
While it is extremely difficult to change these reified ideas, it is not impossible. If there is a large shocking event that contradicts a long held cherished belief, it can shatter that concrete casing. If exposed to continuous disconfirm story experiences, it can be worn down. If the social support is removed, other ideas begin to invade and displace them.
So there are two contradictory forces at work on MAGA right now. First, and most concerning, is the invasion of the right wing media into our milquetoast media outlets. The Ellison’s have overpaid — using Saudi and Qatari money, BTW — to acquire CNN. They already have CBS. Too many other media outlets are also controlled by either fascists or collaborators: Tik Tok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, the Washington Post, the Sinclair Group, ChatGPT. I’m sure there is more. But, the right wing media bubble is growing. Just like Fox News perverted all of our parents, these may capture a new generation of discontents — see the discussion of Gen Z above.
Promises Made, Promise Broke: The Rudeness of Reality
The counterweight to that is the deep disappointment that many in MAGA are feeling over the Epstein files, tariffs and inflation, and the war on Iran. El Gran Narcisista ran on lowing prices, making other countries PAY goddammit!, exposing the satanic pizza-based Democratic human trafficking pedophile ring, and no new wars. Well, it hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that he’s doing the exact opposite of all of those things.
If the Epstein Files were going to prove once and for all that Comment Ping Pong was really Clinton’s headquarters for making John Podesta s risotto with baby blood selling little girls like Good Humor person of old, then why hasn’t Trump done it? If he had, we could’ve hauled the Clintons and Obamas off to Guantanamo and hung them all on barges by now. How many dimensions of chess is Trump playing that he would deny his base such entertainments?
Prices haven’t come down and tariffs are confusing. No one knows what to believe about tariffs because thinking is hard, but prices are still high.
We have bombed seven countries in the past year, more than anyone has in the history of the country. And, Iran isn’t surrendering to the master negotiator, deal maker, and strategist. In fact, the horrors of the the Trump regime just seem to grow instead of diminish. No matter how much you try to dress it up as being one of the four horseman of the apocalypse, it still seems like there are a lot of innocent people being killed and nothing being accomplished.
In fact, Trump et al. seems to be getting offally rich while he’s in office.
We’ve looked for the past decade for ways to break Trump’s strangle hold on MAGA, and the solution has been right in front of us the entire time. You give him enough rope, and he’ll shoot everyone in the gonads, including MAGA, because Feculent Touch.
Image Attribution
This image was found on Trader’s Union using a Creative Commons search.
The Psy of Life 
What with all these enumerated horrors of Trump and Trumpites (his mini-mes), added to the stress of climate change (even for the unbelievers, because weather is real), and being witnesses to the horrors of Gaza, Ukraine, Somalia, our weekly mass shootings, and economic uncertainty, and the drip drip drip of the Epstein discoveries hinting at worse to be found, somebody would have to be living ina cave subsisting on moss, or literally deaf, dumb, and blind no to have PTSD as both victim and witness. We talk about Epstein’s survivors, but at this point, one way or another, we could all claim the title, “Survivor of abuse.” Aside from, perhaps, immigrants, the most abused group may well be MAGA, constantly getting f___ed by their Daddy. Sooner or later, at least some of them must wake up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The suggestion that something dramatic being needed to break through delusional thinking was one of the most encouraging things I’d read in a long time. I think we’re about to see a lot of drama hit the fan.
Jack
LikeLike