As you all know, I “Love” logic (Programmer/Software Engineer). What some of you may not be aware of is I am a great Fan of Louis Carroll. This is mostly because I love logical nonsense. By logical nonsense is all of the reasoning is logical but the results are total nonsense. I like to use it to show that logic is a tool, and like all tools it can be badly misused. So what does this have to do with Trump and MAGA? I’m glad you asked.
Now, to be perfectly clear, MAGA is just a convenient term I use for the collection of “Conspiracy Theorists” who for the most part follow Pres. Trump. This includes not only the Theorist followers but also those who both enable and those who create the theories. While these three groups are separate they also can share people and ideas in common (see Venn Diagram bellow). An this is the problem now facing both Trump and the people in the GOP exploiting them.
As you can see not everyone in one circle is in all the others. Some are in all three groups while some are only in one or two. To make it even messier, the individual elements are dynamic and move around, some a lot. This is do to not only to the feelings of the individual but also do to the actions of the influencers. An just to make it even more fun, in influencers motivation may have nothing in common with the influenced.
Now back to Louis Carroll and logical nonsense. The first thing to understand is everything is based on the first premises you select. If they are skewed, you can end up in some crazy places. Over the years I have found one of the easiest way to get a skewed premise is to start with your conclusion and look for the premise that supports it. Another good way is to just pick a premise you like even though you know it not to be true and finally, and I think the most common is to take something someone has asserted and run with it.
So where do we go from there? Well I see the biggest problem is not with the nonsensical logic, but the failure to recognize that it is nonsense. That the conclusion you reach is something you like and want to believe. I submit that this is one of the biggest problems of “MAGA”. It is also why we have so many enablers in MAGA. First you find out what your audience wants to believe and then you work backwards to get your faulty premise. It’s all “Logical”, there for it must be true. Unfortunately this is not true.
So what is happening with MAGA and the Trump team. Simple, there are several much beloved conspiracy theories out there that the Trump and his Team have been pushing to help him get elected. Now he needs to get them to let the go and they don’t want to and nothing Trump does or says will get them to do it easily. Even if all of the information the Trump administration has is released and it shows nothing happen (pick your theory, this is true for all of them) and while you may get some people to accept you position, many, if not most, will just say it is proof of just how powerful it’s “evil cabal” is. It is a classic “no win” situation.
It is also a classic case(s) of two other things. First Trump has always been able to distract his target audience when the time comes that they can see they have been coned. But not this time. This time he is dealing with “True Believers”, people who will resist to the last from being distracted. A these are the same people who will get out the “tar and feathers” for who ever they can blame for the “failure” of there theory. Don’t believe me, just go look at what happened with the Great Disappointment. What Trump needs to do, soon is either hop a train/plane/automobile out of town, or find someone to blame who the majority of MAGA will accept as a fall guy.
All the rest of us can do is wait till it happens and then pick up the pieces and start to rebuild.