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[–] 48 points 9 months ago* (7 children)

Are you familiar with the concept of limerence? It's an intense infatuation with a person typically rooted in romantic interest. It occurs when you don't really know a person, and you build an idealized version of them in your mind that likely doesn't reflect reality. You attribute all sorts of positive traits to them and overlook all their negative traits. You effectively view them through "rose colored glasses". This is how Trump's followers look at him. They have this delusional view of him as this strong man here to save them from the mean old leftists. His efforts to seize and wield extraordinary power is viewed favorably, because he is their savior. Everything he does is either awesome or it's just minimized and ignored. When he does horrible things, it's just haters looking to knock him down, because he's just giving the U.S. the tough medicine it needs. There is no way to reason with them, because you can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into in the first place. It's an emotional thing, in the same way you might be smitten by an attractive woman and build her up in your mind into something that she isn't. The only way to break the spell is when your fantasy runs into cold, hard reality. In this case, the cold, hard reality will be financial collapse of the U.S. (or worse).

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  • [–] 21 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    you can’t reason someone out of something they didn’t reason themselves into

    This is the crux. None of it is reasoned.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago*

    Yep. This is why you have to code your language to things that are emotionally evocative to them. To some Christians, it’s using the world evil (“this action is evil”). To others it’s using the word weak (“this makes him look really weak”).

    Edit: and to be clear, it doesn’t actually need to be logical. You can say something like “his makeup makes him look weak” or “I heard that he sings in a falsetto, that’s super weird”. It doesn’t matter (by definition, it doesn’t need to be logical). What matters is repeatedly associating a negative stimulus with the target position you’re trying to dislodge (or positive stimulus for a position you want held, but humans in America and maybe generally tend to be very profoundly negative averse). The reason these people are hear is because this association game has been played very long and very hard. It is the basis of propaganda.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    People do this with fictional characters too. TVtropes calls it "Draco in Leather Pants". People find an evil character attractive and so paint a picture of that character in their head that is nothing like they are in canon, exaggerating any good thing about them (or just making up good things about them) and ignoring or justifying anything bad about them

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    You effectively view them through "rose colored glasses"

    They must be seeing him through orange colored glasses, effectively normalizing his appearance. . . But who knows what they're smoking to ignore all their other senses!

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