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Trumpism

Thanks to Trump's demonization of every media outlet that doesn't push his narrative, most conservatives don't have a full picture of who the guy is. Consider that we have a president who:

• Inflames division by pitting people against each other


• Emphasizes "us versus them" among our own U.S. citizens


• Vilifies the free press that is critical of him


• Calls journalists the "enemy of the people"


• Disregards the ethical limits of presidential power


• Encourages violence against protestors at his rallies


• Regards bullying as strength


• Undermines public trust in our judicial system and intelligence agencies


• Alienates the U.S. from its neighbors and allies


• Has become infamous among world leaders for his narcissism and disrespect


• Displays great admiration for and a kinship with dictators


• Encourages antagonism toward entire people groups and the marginalized


• Attempts to suppress any free speech that criticizes him


• Punishes personal disloyalty with a slew of public insults and a pink slip


• Rewards personal loyalty with pardons and powerful positions


• Engages in blatant nepotism by providing powerful jobs to unqualified family


• Lies pathologically


• Views any criticism of America's faults as anti-patriotic


• Believes anti-patriotism should be punished


• Elevates patriotism above constitutional rights


• Regularly insults private citizens in public


• Calls for his political opponents to be "locked up"


• Displays openly xenophobic and racist thinking


• Shows a long history of a disgraceful attitude toward women


• Has successfully centered an entire political party around one man, himself


• Runs on a platform of religious nationalism


• Has violently shut down peaceful protest


• Consistently resists the denunciation of right-wing hate groups and terrorists


• Cares more about his image than the health and lives of our citizens


• Calls himself "the chosen one" and the best president America ever had


• Was a proven charlatan and fraudster long before he took office


• Is trying, openly and without shame, to overturn a clearly decided and fair election

And this president is mulishly embraced by a third of the nation.

When I describe him this way to his supporters they turn it on me and claim that I'm the one who's brainwashed by leftist propaganda. And when I show frustration at the absurdity of that they interpret it as irrationality. The fact that Trump's team actually coined the term "alternative facts" in an attempt to make their position tenable seems to have been lost on them.

Trump has encouraged his base to normalize authoritarian thinking, mistake nationalism for patriotism, embrace conspiracy theories, distrust those who are different, and erroneously recognize the U.S. as a "Christian" nation while naming him, Trump, as God's chosen sword to bring his will to rule. Yes, they quite literally consider Trump God's chosen. When did we enter the Twilight Zone?

It wouldn't worry me so much if it was just a small population. But Trump took a fringe demographic and made it mainstream. I've seen too many centrist conservatives in my orbit turn oddly fanatic. Overnight, their feeds became littered with MAGA hats and screwball conspiratorial thinking. They changed. Trump is the anomaly. The aberration. They think he's woken them up to reality but he's only duped them into cultish delusion.