Reading this profile of Trumpists in Tulsa and their takes on BLM, it's pretty clear that motivated reasoning is stronger than any other intellectual force. When you hear them say that Trump doesn't exhibit any racism...I guess some of that is epistemological closure, where they get all their info from Fox, OANN and Facebook. Some of it is also a simply case of "I voted for Trump, I am not wrong, Trump is not wrong, therefore anyone who opposes him must be wrong."
When you proceed from the infallibility of your own political judgment - in this case usually anchored in some iteration of "common sense" that is really just ingrained prejudices and practices - then nothing can really shake that. It's telling that most people who have moved away from Trump usually say they voted for him in 2016 because they hated Hillary or they didn't think it would be so bad. They were not supporting Trump, so much as they supported the Republican Party.
It is worth noting two things that arise from this premise.
First, there is no reaching someone who is committed to Trump. There is no argument, no magic bullet of information, no enlightening moment for someone who doesn't want to be enlightened. If they haven't considered dropping their support for Trump or the GOP, they are not going to change now.
Second, all those suburban voters who are fleeing the GOP and Trump have the potential to grow the Democratic Party into a governing majority for a decent while. The Sandernistas and Rose Twitter think that letting "Wine Moms" into their hip socialist club will ruining everything. The reality is that over time, the moderates will assume more left wing positions for the same reason Trumpists think Trump is a family man: motivated reasoning.
Once they pick a side and become Democrats - even for just a few election cycles - they will move left because of the same motivated reasoning pattern.
No comments:
Post a Comment