One of the great puzzles of our time — at least to me — is why so many of our fellow Americans continue to support Donald Trump and apparently plan to vote for him again.
Maureen Dowd, in the New York Times, suggests an answer:
I am not sure whether pounding away on the facts will work in a country with alternate realities. According to a new Washington Post/University of Maryland poll, 25 percent of Americans said it is ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ true that the F.B.I. was behind Jan. 6. Among Republicans, The Post said, 34 percent said the F.B.I. ‘organized and encouraged the insurrection, compared with 30 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats.’
If people don’t know by now that Trump tried to overthrow the government he was running on Jan. 6; if they don’t know that the MAGA fanatics breaking into the Capitol, beating up cops and threatening to harm Pelosi and hang Mike Pence were criminals, not ‘patriots’ and ‘hostages,’ as Trump risibly calls them; if they don’t know that Trump created the radical Supreme Court that is stripping women of their rights, then they don’t want to know, or they just don’t care.
It’s not a particularly reassuring explanation, but it’s probably close to the truth. And it may be that it’s not possible to move some folks from their “alternate realities” — which is indeed sad and scary.
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