VOTE GODDAMMIT!

For years I have sputtered in frustration that Trump supporters must be dumber than a bag of hammers. But that’s too easy an explanation, and it misses the point. Intelligence alone doesn’t protect us from motivated reasoning, tribal loyalty, or the human tendency to believe what we desperately want to be true.

(Okay, some of them really ARE dumber than a bag of hammers. Apologies to bags and hammers.)

And then a Facebook friend asked me if there was a psychological term for those who still hold out hope that Trump or his cult will wake TF up, which got me to thinking. I answered:

False Hope Syndrome, Optimism Bias, Cognitive Dissonance, Belief Perseverance. Any or all. Take your pick.

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post called “Codependent No More,” in which I swore I would never again put myself in the position of trying to turn a Trumper. I believe I’ve (kinda) stuck to that promise. But this isn’t about them.

It’s about US.

Those of us who cling to the tiniest thread of hope that they will someday see the light, and that one morning we’ll wake up to discover the fever has broken and everyone has come to their senses.

Bless our little hearts.

False Hope Syndrome

False Hope Syndrome describes the cycle of repeatedly trying to change a person or situation, failing, and then trying again with essentially the same unrealistic expectations. Some might call this the definition of insanity. Therapists would call it a recurring treatment failure.

Trying to talk a committed Trumper out of deeply held beliefs requires us to entertain the possibility that those beliefs are rooted in logic, that evidence matters, and that a sufficiently compelling argument might change their mind.

It’s a little like explaining to a four-year-old that they can’t have a bag of M&Ms right before dinner because it will ruin their appetite.

Big feelings.

Optimism Bias

Optimism bias refers to our tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive events and underestimate our likelihood of experiencing negative events. The Darwin Awards are practically a shrine to this phenomenon. They chronicle people, now dead or maimed, whose optimism about their own invincibility led them to perform dumbass feats, like:

A corporate lawyer at the Toronto-Dominion Centre who threw himself against a 24th-floor boardroom window to prove the glass was unbreakable. Turns out it was! But the entire window frame popped out of the building. With him along for the ride.

Or:

A group of drunk men stripped naked and hit each other over the head with frozen turnips. Then one man seized a chainsaw and cut off the end of his foot. Not to be outdone, another man grabbed the saw and, shouting the equivalent of “hold my beer”, swung at his own head and chopped it off.

Now, I don’t think believing that Trump supporters will suddenly develop critical thinking skills is quite as dangerous as challenging a skyscraper window or a chainsaw. But there is a certain family resemblance.

How many times have we said, “Surely THIS will be the thing that finally wakes them up!” The latest scandal, the latest lie, the latest assault on democracy. The latest atrocity that would have sent any other politician off to spend more time with his family.

And yet, here we are, still waiting for the lightbulb to go on. At some point, optimism stops being a virtue and starts looking a bit like a concussion.

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort we feel when two of our beliefs contradict each other, or when our behavior conflicts with what we claim to believe. For example:

You know smoking can kill you, but you light up anyway. To resolve the conflict, you either 1) stop smoking, 2) say the scientists are wrong, or 3) say you don’t really smoke all that much, only when you’re drunk. Or stressed. Or on days that end with Y.

We Never-Trumpers have our own version.

We KNOW Trump supporters have been defending him for over a decade, excusing increasingly outrageous behavior. We’ve presented evidence, corrected misinformation, and even composed Facebook responses so devastatingly brilliant that we fully expected to bring about the collapse of the MAGA movement by lunchtime.

And yet, here we are.

Belief Perseverance

Belief perseverance is the tendency to hold on to our beliefs even when presented with compelling evidence that contradicts them. The related phenomenon known as the backfire effect describes cases in which correcting a false belief can actually strengthen it, although that response isn’t inevitable. For example:

I once went to a barbecue where a seemingly intelligent middle-aged woman informed me, with absolute conviction, “You know Michelle Obama is a MAN, right?”

Or Gretchen, who is convinced she has the stamina and endurance of a 20-year-old, despite the fact that falling asleep in front of the television at 8:30 has become a binding contract with the remote.

We all have our blind spots. Some are simply more consequential than others.

Anyone still waiting for the cult to wake up and smell the Trump diaper is practicing belief perseverance, and it is backfiring on them, big time. Pun intended.

So there you have it. Four psychological concepts that might explain why otherwise intelligent, well-informed Never-Trumpers continue to say things like:

“By George, I think they’ve got it!”

“Once it starts kicking them in their own ass, they’ll see the truth!”

ROFLMFAO.

The true believers genuinely think Biden caused the bad economy and that Hillary, between bites of pizza, runs a sex trafficking ring in a Washington, DC basement. Years of exposure to Fox News can leave a person with a remarkably confident grasp of complete bullshit.

We Never-Trumpers have our own four horsemen of political self-deception, riding hard in hopes of a revelation, a reckoning, a collective moment of clarity. We keep expecting the evidence to matter because, to us, the evidence matters.

Okay. Deep breath. This is the part where I put down the cocktail for a minute.

Remember “Codependent No More”? This is the same disease with a different patient. Codependency is hinging your own well-being on someone else finally changing. Waiting for the MAGA faithful to wake up is just that, with a billboard.

Here’s the difference between us and them. Our hope is a bad habit. Theirs is an entire belief system. We can quit ours.

Which brings me to the really shitty part:

We may have to save democracy without ever getting an apology.

No “you were right, I was wrong.” No tearful concession over Thanksgiving dinner. That woman from the barbecue will go to her grave believing Michelle Obama is a man.

Boo Hiss.

So stop refreshing the feed for signs of the great awakening. The cavalry isn’t coming from Mar-a-Lago.

It’s us. We’re the cavalry. And frankly, some of us could use a nap.