…Ever since his election as US President in 2016, and especially in view of Trump’s decisive popular-vote and Electoral College victory in the 2024 US Presidential election campaign, it has become self-evident that he is self-consciously operating with a highly deviant, highly devious, sophistical logic that is in fact in violation of the minimal law of non-contradiction.
This logic was fully on display, for example, during the first presidential candidates’ debate with Kamala Harris, as per the image at the top of this essay, but also throughout the seemingly endless campaign. I call Trump’s logic, the logic of mindfuck. The logic of mindfuck has two basic principles.
First, the principle of alt-facts: you can assert or deny (or assert and deny) any statement whatsoever, in any context, as desired. These assertions or denials are called “alternative facts” or “alt-facts” (CNN/Conway, 2017). According to Harry Frankfurt, bullshit is speech that systematically manifests a blatant disregard for truth, alongside a pretended concern for truth (Frankfurt, 1988). Therefore, by virtue of the principle of alt-facts, basically everything Trump asserts is bullshit.
More generally, the purpose of the principle of alt-facts is to mess with the mind of anyone who cares about truth, and therefore sharply disagrees with Trump — whom he then calls “creators of FAKE NEWS.”
Second, the principle of unrestricted entailment: you can infer any and every statement from any and every other statement, as desired. So, by virtue of the principle of unrestricted entailment, Trump is not merely a truth-hater but also a logical nihilist.
The purpose of the principle of unrestricted entailment is to mess with the mind of anyone who cares about logic and (minimal) consistency, and therefore sharply disagrees with Trump — whom he then calls “COMMUNISTS” or “LIARS.”
As rational human animals, we’re not only rationally obligated but also morally obligated to care about truth and logic (Hanna, 2006b). Therefore, as rational human animals, we’re not only rationally but also morally obligated to identify, criticize, and reject illogical Trumpism and Trump’s logic of mindfuck; and this is particularly important and indeed urgent now that Trump and his Republican myrmidons have been enabled by a substantial democratic majority for another four years.…
-Robert Hanna
So, why do some people support this moronic, lying, illogical scoundrel?
According to neuroscientist Bobby Azarian, “Some people support him out of
ignorance. Basically, they are under-informed or misinformed about the issues
at hand.”
Consider when he still redundantly states the 2020
election was stolen, and they simply take his word for it. This is called “The
Dunning-Kruger Effect. [In other words], the problem isn’t just that they are
misinformed; it’s that they are completely unaware that they are misinformed,
which creates a double burden [for them]. Studies have shown that people who
lack expertise in some area of knowledge often have a cognitive bias that
prevents them from realizing that they lack expertise [or knowledge and intelligence].”
As psychologist David Dunning wrote in an op-ed for Politico years ago, “The knowledge and intelligence that are required to [understand an issue at hand] are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is [unwitting] — and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains [completely oblivious] and is [incapable of understanding complex issues]. This includes political judgment: These people cannot be reached because they mistakenly believe they are correct [without the use of logic, inferential and divergent thinking, analysis, synthesis, common sense, evidence and facts].”
Moreover, why do MAGA politicians still support fallacious Trump? They
want to hold on to their power, despite the consequential destruction of our
democracy and the Constitution. There are also people who continue to support
him because of their selfish greed. Why did they vote for him a second time?
When he was in office, their idiotic rejoinder was usually “It’s the economy.” [And what has he done to the economy today?]. Of course, Trump and his cohorts do not care about millions of people who suffer while he
continues to abet the American oligarchy.
On the other hand, there are those who still support irrational Trump and choose to ignore his seditious and treacherous behavior, his reprehensible ignorance, egregious incompetence, intentional maliciousness, anti-social personality disorder, pathological narcissism, psychopathic dominance, impulsivity, remorselessness, cheating and lying.
One can assume they continue
to support his absurdity today because of their own illogic, xenophobia, fear,
resentment, racism, hatred, anxiety, insecurity, avarice, credulousness,
submissiveness, powerlessness, and indifference.
September 29, 2020
-Glen Brown
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