Essentially, their research finds that supporters and followers adopt such irrational stances as to deny Trump’s criminality, lying, sadism etc; and to inflate his perceived ‘achievements’ – like the myth of a ‘strong’ economy because these are the only way for them to cope with the dissonances and contradictions which most real evidence presents. Just call facts ‘false’ and you don’t have to deal with them.

It doesn’t help that Trump’s lies outnumber anything truthful or accurate that he says. If you’re inclined to believe Trump, the sheer weight of his lies ‘must make them true’. Particularly since, if they’re true, then what Trump and other cult members say must make them be telling the truth: good old-fashioned circular logic. It is (only) by such self-deception that the conflicting views which otherwise-informed observers could (and would) resolve can ‘make sense’.

There is another subversive mental trick: to overshadow a contradiction by labelling as worse something which more shrewd and better-informed observers would see as a spurious comparison. Constantly alluding to an opposition figure, circumstance or event – like Biden’s presidency, Hillary Clinton’s misdeeds, Kamala Harris’s gender, for instance.

The NSW study explains how relying on these comparisons can reinforce beliefs belied by the facts. For instance such a deflection is still employed almost hourly by propaganda outlets like Fox ‘News’, which is even now fixated on “Hunter Biden’s laptop”, as though exposure of whatever wrongdoing was committed by opponents totally mitigated all of Trump’s offences.

Racism

You needn’t worry that you could lose your vote and representation in national elections if you are white and live in Alabama; but if you’re black… Look Out! At the beginning of this month the Supreme court ruled explicitly in favour of racial discrimination: the state must use congressional maps newly drawn up so as to deprive black voters both of the right to vote and to prevent black candidates being elected to Congress.

The MAGA cult also has its political science upside down: “The Aryan Nation, the Nazis and the KKK are not far-right organisations. Those are far-left organisations, and they always have been. The KKK was created and started by the Democrats in the United States… they’ve never been associated with the right; they’ve always been associated with the left”. So said Congressperson Harriet Hageman (Wyoming) recently in support of her fact-free smear campaign against the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In other news of bigotry and fear, the Texas Children’s Hospital – under pressure from the US Department of ‘Justice’ – agreed last month to sack five doctors who had been providing gender-affirming care to teenagers, and to fully fund a ‘de-transition clinic’.

Also in Texas the ad hominem attacks against a Democratic candidate widely seen as somewhat progressive, James Talarico, are reaching new lows every few days. Similarly, women pastors aren’t welcome in southern churches.

Trump continues to commit acts of murder, and ‘piracy on the high seas’: more ships get ‘blown up’ by US terrorists… at about the same time it was calculated that Trump has threatened to ‘blow up’ (and in a few cases actually attacked) one in 13 (8%) of all the world’s countries.

Nor do you have to look much further than last month’s primary election in Kentucky, where a Republican representative, Thomas Massie, was voted out by a candidate endorsed by Trump (on whose campaign an estimated $US35m (£26m) – think how many hospitals that could build and fund – was spent to win) because Massie spoke out against Trump’s war on Iran and dared to work for the release of the Epstein files implicating Trump in crimes against children. In fact, of those who voted in favour of releasing the files covering the infamous Epstein files a majority have either lost their jobs or been defeated in electoral challenges from MAGA cult candidates.

Environment

The Trump/MAGA cult acts from selfishness, of course; from dogma; from belligerence – and at times: sheer sadistic stupidity. Last month, for instance, they scrapped regulations which restrict the deployment of the so-called ‘forever’ chemicals, per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

These regulations were put in place to curb cancer when these toxins are introduced into drinking water. So expect greater incidence of linked to cancer, obesity, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, decreased fertility, liver damage, hormone disruption and damage to the immune system, as identified by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) own research and data.

This sadistic idiocy is consistent with other examples of ways in which the US healthcare system is being wrecked. And consistent with moves by the MAGA cult to do away with monitoring the world’s oceans. Hardly surprising from an administration that paid a company in France $US1 billion (£745 million) NOT to build offshore sources of renewable energy. Further, the cult announced last week that $US700 million (£524) million is to be given to the coal industry

Equally crazy are apparent plans by Trump to give private companies enough plutonium for 2,000 nuclear bombs. Again, that’s hardly surprising if Trump can hire someone convicted for insurrection on January 6, 2021 for a job in counterterrorism in the Pentagon. This is by no means an isolated incident: those pardoned by Trump immediately on his coming to office again in 2021, seem frequently re-offend yet get rewarded with government positions.

Although it might be some time before the MAGA cult explicitly and openly touts its belief in Social Darwinism, this probably lies behind such moves as this on water and the administration’s deliberate unpreparedness to confront Ebola. US experts are also being prevented from collaborating with their counterparts elsewhere in the world.

This is not really surprising though: the significant steps which Trump/MAGA took with Elon Musk’s DOGE at the start of Trump’s second term to cripple and dismantle the government has left the US poorly equipped to cope with the kind of health emergency that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo represents. In fact it’s also possible that the situation in Africa has been made worse – if not actually caused in part – by the significant cuts in US aid which were also made by DOGE.

More evidence of Trump/MAGA sadism can be found in a report published at the end of last month by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: the ‘reconciliation’ bill passed last July to withdraw ‘SNAP’ (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) from children appears – as was predicted by the law’s many opponents and critics – to have moved over 700,000 children closer to food insecurity and poverty. In a Senate hearing last week, though, the US secretary of agriculture, Brooke Rollins, lied about this, effectively suggesting that all those children themselves actively volunteered to go hungry.

Cultism

At the same time as these two related developments were making news, a White House-backed day long prayer meeting in Washington DC with the aim of “rededicat[ing of] our country as One Nation Under God” took place simultaneously with Trump’s renewed threat to annihilate Iranians, who are not Christians. Squarely in line with overtly racist comments like these and actions like these.

And simultaneously with the erection in Miami of a golden statue of Trump reinforcing his Christian supremacy image. Virtual statues are also common: the New York Times recently found that one in every sixth sentence of everything uttered at (publicly available) cabinet meetings is the utterance of a sycophantic adoration of Trump by his cult.

And simultaneously with his announcement of a $US1.8 billion (or actually the patriotic $1.776 – in celebration of the US’s 250th anniversary; that is £1.32 billion) which would – illegally – be paid to MAGA cultists who, for instance, staged the attempted Putsch in 2021 to keep Trump in power. Talking of overturning elections, the FBI recently raided a voting rights organisation in an apparent attempt at intimidation.

One arguably positive result of this bombardment of egomaniacal corruption and criminality was the appearance on several media outlets of specialists like Congressperson Jamie Raskin forcefully outlining the extent to which blatant ‘graft’ and (financial) corruption, fraud, delinquency and ‘sleaze’ has spread… “…the whole idea is to seize as much of the federal budget as possible to put directly under his [Trump’s] control… They’re turning the entire budget of the United States, that was authorised and appropriated by Congress, into a collection of slush funds”.

And just to make sure that no-one ever knows the extent of Trump’s theft and corruption, the IRS (the equivalent of the Inland Revenue in the UK) will never ever again be allowed or able to examine or rectify any ‘errors’ in the tax affairs of Trump, his family or businesses.

This is the same Jamie Raskin who drew attention to the long history of MAGA xenophobic and supremacist attacks on Muslims in the US just five days before the attack on San Diego’s largest mosque; this was followed the day after the attack by a racist rant from White House advisor and confidante, Laura Loomer: her comments could be enough to offer permission to naïve and gullible aggressors into carrying out another such attack.

Image: White House on Flickr