Look, I've been trying to understand this shit for years now. Every damn time I think I've wrapped my head around how people can still support a man who's shown us exactly who he is, I'm left scratching my head all over again. So let's just get into it — the uncomfortable reality of what it really means to be a ride-or-die Trump supporter in today's America.
Donald Trump is a Piece of Human Shit: A History of Scamming the Vulnerable
Remember Trump University? That fraudulent "educational institution" designed specifically to prey on people's hopes for a better future? The one where Trump and his cronies targeted vulnerable Americans, many of them elderly or financially struggling, and conned them out of their life savings with promises of real estate secrets that never materialized?
The courts sure as hell remembered when they forced him to pay out $25 million in settlements. But his supporters? They just shrugged that shit off. "That's just business," they said, as if defrauding desperate people is some kind of admirable entrepreneurial skill.
It's the same story with his contractors. This man built his entire business model around stiffing the very people who built his properties — electricians, plumbers, carpenters, small business owners who did the work and then got told to fuck off when they asked to be paid. These weren't faceless corporations; these were working Americans who needed that money to feed their families.
But when faced with this information, the MAGA crowd doesn't even flinch. It's as if they've decided that being screwed over by Trump is actually a badge of honor. "That won't happen to ME," they seem to think, despite all evidence suggesting they're exactly the demographic he's been exploiting his entire career.
Sexual Predation: The "Locker Room Talk" Dismissal
"Grab 'em by the pussy." Those words should have ended his presidential aspirations right then and there. Any other politician in American history would have been done. Toast. Career over.
But Trump? His supporters rallied harder. They dismissed it as "locker room talk," as if admitting to sexual assault is just what guys do when the ladies aren't around. As if that's normal. As if that's acceptable.
And it didn't stop there. When woman after woman came forward with credible allegations of harassment and assault — 26 of them and counting — his supporters didn't just ignore it. They actively attacked the victims. They called them liars, attention-seekers, or claimed they weren't attractive enough for Trump to assault.
What kind of twisted morality allows someone to hear a man brag about sexual assault and think, "Yeah, that's my guy"? What does it say about a person who can look at dozens of women sharing traumatic experiences and immediately dismiss them all?
The Bigotry Buffet: Pick Your Prejudice
The pattern of bigotry that defines Trump's public persona isn't subtle. It's not hidden. It's right there in plain sight for anyone willing to see it.
When he launched his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, it wasn't a dog whistle — it was a fucking bullhorn. When he pushed the racist birther conspiracy against Obama for years, it wasn't a slip of the tongue — it was a deliberate strategy. When he called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," it wasn't a misunderstanding — it was his actual policy position.
Yet his supporters insist he's "the least racist person you'll ever meet." They'll point to the occasional Black or Latino person at his rallies as if that erases his history of housing discrimination, his calls for the execution of the (innocent) Central Park Five, or his description of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville as "very fine people."
The cognitive dissonance is mind-boggling. It's like watching someone stand in the rain while insisting with absolute conviction that it's a sunny day.
The Cruelty Is the Point: Celebrating Inhumanity
I want to focus on something particularly disturbing — the way Trump supporters cheer when he's at his most cruel. It's not that they tolerate his cruelty despite his other qualities; they actively celebrate it.
Remember when he mocked a disabled reporter, flailing his arms in a grotesque impersonation? His crowd roared with laughter. When he suggested beating up protesters at his rallies and promised to pay the legal fees? They cheered. When he ordered security to throw someone out into the freezing cold and "confiscate their coat"? More applause.
There's the story he told about an elderly man who fell and was bleeding on the marble floor at one of his clubs. Trump's reaction wasn't concern for the man's well-being — it was disgust that the blood might stain his precious floor. Any normal human being would hear that story and think, "What a heartless asshole." But not his supporters. They eat that shit up.
This isn't just about political differences anymore. This is about basic human empathy. When did we reach a point where cruelty became something to applaud rather than condemn?
The Hypocritical "Family Values" Crowd
For decades, the Republican Party positioned itself as the party of "family values," of Christian morality, of personal responsibility. And then they hitched their wagon to a thrice-married adulterer who paid hush money to a porn star while his third wife was pregnant.
The evangelicals who clutched their pearls over Bill Clinton's affair turned around and embraced a man whose entire life has been a monument to the seven deadly sins. Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride — Trump embodies them all so perfectly it's almost comical.
The mental gymnastics required to reconcile "family values" with supporting Trump would be impressive if they weren't so damned depressing. These are the same people who lecture others about morality while worshipping at the altar of a man who's broken at least half of the Ten Commandments (and that's being generous).
The Anti-Intellectualism Crusade: Proud Ignorance
"I love the poorly educated," Trump once declared, and they loved him right back. This isn't just about formal education — it's about a proud, defiant rejection of expertise in all its forms.
Trump boasts about not reading books. He claims to know more than generals, doctors, scientists, and economists. He relies on his "gut" rather than data or evidence. And his supporters follow his lead, dismissing decades of scientific consensus on everything from climate change to vaccine efficacy.
Knowledge has become suspect. Expertise has become elitist. The very concept of objective truth has been eroded to the point where facts are just opinions you can take or leave depending on how they make you feel.
This anti-intellectualism didn't start with Trump, but he cranked it up to eleven. He made ignorance a virtue and curiosity a weakness. He created an environment where being uninformed is seen as more authentic than being knowledgeable.
The Authoritarian Appeal: Strength Over Democracy
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Trump phenomenon is the open embrace of authoritarian tendencies. His admiration for dictators like Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Duterte isn't a bug of his presidency — it's a feature that his base enthusiastically supports.
When Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose voters, it wasn't just a boast about his popularity — it was a test of his supporters' unconditional loyalty. And they passed with flying colors, proving that there is literally nothing he could do to lose their devotion.
This cult of personality transcends normal political attachment. It's not about policies or ideologies anymore; it's about unwavering loyalty to the man himself. When Trump contradicts himself (which happens constantly), his supporters don't care. When he fails to deliver on promises, they make excuses. When he commits crimes, they claim it's all a witch hunt.
The desire for a strong man who will punish the "right" people has overwhelmed any commitment to democratic norms or the rule of law. His supporters don't want a president; they want a king.
The Child Separation Policy: A New Moral Low
If there was ever a policy that should have been universally condemned by Americans of all political stripes, it was the deliberate separation of children from their parents at the border. This wasn't just a political mistake; it was a moral abomination.
Children — some as young as infants — were taken from their parents and placed in facilities that can only be described as cages. Many were abused. Some died. And the administration was so incompetent that they lost track of hundreds of children, meaning some families may never be reunited.
The psychological trauma inflicted on these children will last a lifetime. Every child development expert, every pediatrician, every mental health professional warned about the devastating consequences of this policy. And Trump did it anyway.
His supporters? They either denied it was happening, claimed Obama did it first (he didn't), or — most disturbingly — said the cruelty was justified because the parents "broke the law" by seeking asylum.
When you're defending the caging of children, it might be time to reconsider your moral compass.
The Charitable Explanation: Stupidity vs. Something Worse
So here we are, left wondering: why? Why would seemingly functional adults continue to support a man whose character flaws are so numerous and so glaring?
The most charitable explanation is that they're simply uninformed or misinformed. That they live in such a carefully constructed bubble of Fox News, OANN, and Facebook conspiracies that they genuinely don't know who Trump really is.
But that explanation only goes so far. In the age of information, ignorance is increasingly a choice. And when presented with clear evidence of Trump's corruption, cruelty, and incompetence, his supporters don't reconsider their position — they double down.
Which leaves us with less charitable explanations:
Maybe they know exactly who Trump is, and they support him because of those qualities, not despite them. Maybe they see his willingness to hurt the "right" people as a feature, not a bug. Maybe they're so consumed by hatred of the "other side" that they'd burn down democracy itself just to "own the libs."
Or maybe — and this is the explanation I find most plausible — they've invested so much of their identity in supporting Trump that admitting they were wrong would require a level of self-reflection they're simply not capable of. They've gone all in, wearing the hats, flying the flags, alienating friends and family members who tried to reason with them. To acknowledge the truth now would mean facing the fact that they've been conned, and that's a psychological burden many people simply can't bear.
The Way Forward: Beyond Contempt
So where does this leave us? How do we move forward as a country when such a significant portion of our population has shown themselves willing to abandon basic decency in service of one man's ego?
I don't have easy answers. What I do know is that treating Trump supporters with contempt — no matter how justified that contempt might feel — isn't going to solve anything. Calling them stupid or deplorable might be cathartic, but it only reinforces the tribal divisions that got us here in the first place.
At the same time, we can't pretend this is normal. We can't normalize the abnormal or make excuses for the inexcusable. We have to hold firm to the truth, even when it's uncomfortable.
Perhaps the most productive approach is to focus on the systems that made Trump possible rather than the individuals who support him. The media ecosystem that profits from division and misinformation. The economic inequalities that breed resentment and desperation. The educational failures that leave citizens vulnerable to conspiracy theories and demagoguery.
Because the hard truth is that Trump is more symptom than cause. He exploited weaknesses in our society that were already there, divisions that were already widening. Removing him from the equation doesn't solve the underlying problems.
And until we address those problems — until we create a society where people don't feel so alienated and afraid that they'll cling to anyone who promises to protect them, no matter how obviously unfit for leadership they might be — we'll just get more Trumps. Different names, different faces, but the same dangerous appeal to our worst instincts.
That's the real challenge ahead. Not just defeating Trump, but healing the conditions that made him possible in the first place. It won't be easy, and it won't be quick, but it's the only path forward that doesn't lead to the continued erosion of American democracy.
In the meantime, we can only hope that some of his supporters will finally — FINALLY — open their eyes and see what's been right in front of them all along. Because while calling them stupid might be charitable, enabling the destruction of democratic norms and basic human decency isn't something any of us can afford to do.
He is as you have said , a sad demented sack of psychological flaws. Most of us may have experienced someone who might have one of his flaws of character but to see them all combined on display in a disgusting person who is now the leader of some 320 million people is beyond comprehension. But here we are. Again the perfect storm of giving permission to countless people to express their darkest bullying, violent side, economic frustration over the loss off the American dream and facing the hard realities of you work hard and then you die. The inability of uneducated people with their nose to the grindstone being unable to understand the corporations and their billionaire CEOs are sources of their problems… who could blame them ? It must be the fault of the illegal aliens, the poor that are draining us of our hard earned cash, the black and brown, the LGBTQ+, the women who have stolen our jobs and robbed us of our patriotism. And then there’s the Internet that feed not only consumerism but the idea that instant gratification is the standard that we should all expect in all areas of life. The sack of shit and his cronies are the instruments of our destruction but those that elected him enabled this to happen.
Clippers. A nice set of clippers would be nice right now.