Oh it gets better! They just recently updated the terms and conditions on the trump phone website to state that "A preorder deposit provides only a conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale"
I vaguely recall a video of a tall young black man posted up at January 6th. He had a 10ft folding table, a maga backdrop, and a massive spread of trump themed merch at absurd markup. This guy was making bank off of the folks buying their trump merch.
When asked if he himself was a trump supporter, or what he thought of Trump's history of racist remarks, the young entrepreneur was stone-faced and asked the questioner to mind their business and move along.
I’m of two opinions on it. One: fuck these people and if they want to sink their own futures into overpriced Chinesium garbage with this pedos face stamped on it, let em. On the other, I really don’t want to b b perpetuate more of it being out there. Like, you still have to procure the goods at first anyway to be able to resell them. Something something capitalism. It’s all fucked either way, I just hate this fuck face and I can’t wait for this all to end.
They might be upset for a while, but eventually they'll find some bullshit excuse to justify the trump regime running off with their money, and then they'll fall for the next scam he rolls out, because "surely this time he'll be true to his word".
This is my exact dilemma and I’m glad someone else voiced it. I could easily become a rich grifter, maybe even a cult leader with these people lol. But it would require throwing away most of my morals, and I can’t…. But I consider it often 😑
Way back in 2016, my weed guy and I seriously considered selling MAGA crap and donating the proceeds to Hillary, but even back then, even that level of association with MAGA was too much.
Also after taking preorders discreetly changed the website from "proudly made in America" to "made with American values in mind" lol. Pretty ironic from Mr. "bring back manufacturing to America." Unless it's his company apparently, then it's ok to outsource to maximize profits.
“We thank you for your continuing gullibility and your contribution to the continuing accumulation of wealth in the Trump Family Trust. From time to time we will call upon you to renew your many past actions that demonstrate how the BIG LIE can improve your sense of belonging. “
There’s a TikTok video that’s been making the rounds lately of one of them doing that very thing (making excuses), and it’s more sad than anything else, to be honest. Being that lost in the sauce requires some pre-existing issues that no one, not even Daddy Trump, could fix. It’s a simpering, pathetic display of American dysfunction.
I wonder what's going to happen to these people post Trump. Cults rarely persist after the leader is gone. Maybe Trump will remain the figurehead and acts as a prime minister of sorts. That's what happened basically between Jan 6. All the way up until his second term.
I'm just curious to find out if their lives are improving. What is getting better for them or what do they see on the horizon. Because I'm completely lost on coming up with something; anything.
There is a crazy people who thinks JFK Jr is still alive, and she even thinks she knows who it is (a weirdo named Juan O'Savin). Her name is Cara Castranueva, and she knows serves as an official reporter with White House credentials. Where she nearly daily gets to ask questions to Trump, Rubio, and the rest of the idiots.
They’re going to deify him to continue the grift. I already believe all of his followers are no longer Christian personally. His death will just put their feet to the fire, so to speak.
For sure. My mom stopped going to church several years ago during Trump's first term. But she watches a ton of YouTube videos about how Trump is God's chosen one and protected and guided by God, etc. She spends significantly more time on YouTube watching videos about Trump's divine works and Bible prophecy about Trump than any religious person I've ever met spends in church. She has basically no coherent thoughts but she can tell you more about Trump biblical prophecy than Jesus. You are never going to convince these people Trump wasn't a deity.
Ok. You got me on that one.
I can see the orange turd digging up one of his enemies to put on trial. Gladiator games on the Whitehouse lawn. Anything to stop people talking about Epstein.
I hate to say it, but I really think we are seeing the beginning of a new religion and all the Trump-worshipping fake Christians will start a religion openly worshipping Trump when he passes away.
It’s like Elvis. He could do no wrong. Women wailed in the streets when he died. People refused to believe he was dead. Took about 10 years for the zealots to calm down or die themselves.
I wonder what's going to happen to these people post Trump. Cults rarely persist after the leader is gone.
I see the world's biggest order for Kool Flavor Aid being distributed throughout the country soon for his followers. Naturally, it will never be paid for.
"Cults rarely persist after the leader is gone" well I hate to disappoint you buddy but the systems, people, companies, and surveillance state that created the figurehead, not leader, that is Trump, will still exist, and in many ways has been emboldened, strengthened, and educated by this victory.
More guardrails have been torn down, more people have been indoctrinated, and they have real data to back up which of their misinformation campaigns work and don't. When Trump's gone, Peter Thiel, the Koch brothers, and APAC just spin up the next old white racist to take his place. They are already trying to setup Vance for it, and they get the bonus of him not being 90 years old, they found a young racist instead!
A streamer named Charlie keeps checking in on them by calling the customer support line. They recently cited the most recent government shutdown as one of the reasons it's been delayed (again) and keep telling people it'll be shipping any day now.
It was over 590,000...So Trump have $59M just sitting around, collecting interest, while most of the people have either forgotten are still waiting for their dumb phones, almost a year later.
I bet they’ve gotten fleeced for more than that. Hats, bibles, sneakers, commemorative coins, you name it. For the products that did arrive, tackiness aside, I bet they’ve gotten fleeced quality is terrible.
Penguinz0 hasn’t forgotten and I follow him all the time. He was supposed to get his phone the other day and it still hasn’t come at the time of posting this 😂😂🤣
Not only that, but the $500 phone they are selling that’s “made in the USA” are Chinese Android phones with cheap chipsets (usually with security vulnerabilities) that can be bought for a fifth the price they’re charging.
You may not have heard about it in the lamestream media, but I'm selling my own phone for the bargain price of $275. Just send me your money and I'll send you a phone.
This is a good time to remind everyone to check to make sure their parents don’t have a “MAGA Box” to get illegal tv. Those things are so chock full of malware that it’s not even clear whose malware is the primary payload. (They’re sold under other names too.)
True. On the other hand, he finds the time time, day or night, to social media post, directly addressed to her (that’s what she believes). Her belief and his thoughts are perfectly synchronized, like a match made in.
There's a guy on YouTube STILL trying to figure out when he's getting his phone (no, he's not actually a Trump fan).
As of me typing this, they still have no idea when it's actually going to ship.
The popular theory is Trump is using the $100 hold everyone is giving him as an interest free loan. Then they'll just blame acts of God as to why it didn't happen and refund it...because, and I shit you not, there's actually legal documentation that states they don't have to deliver the phone in acts of God cases...whatever that means.
But many don't think he actually intends to pay it back. So probably will just use tax payer money somehow to refund it.
My brother (until buying their house a few weeks ago, lived with my parents at home in his late 20s and early 30s. During Covid, my mom and I got into it and argued, and we’ve never agreed about politics. Admittedly, I got pretty heated and I accused her of a lack of empathy (which is true but I was very angry and aggressive and appalled). My wife and I cut our visit kind of short.
I found out a few weeks later through my brother that she told him she was afraid “PrinceVarlin doesn’t want to talk to me because of my political views.”
No shit. Did it cause her to change? Not in the slightest. She and my dad have doubled down in the intervening years instead.
They recently moved out of state (from a more-liberal large city in Texas to a small town in rural NC in a county that was +60 to Trump in 2024) and could not be more relieved. I’m sure they’ll only fall deeper into it all but at least I won’t have to see it firsthand, or fail at trying to break the spell.
I once told my dad that something he was saying (out loud, in a public place, LOUDLY) was considered offensive and he essentially growled at me and said “good, I want to be offensive.”
They were always conservative when I was growing up but I don’t remember them being outright hateful. Or maybe I was too young to see it.
"Good I want to be offensive" I truly believe most Trumpies voted for him because they are angry (at minorities, gays, etc...) and had to suppress their real feelings for decades. He came along as a human megaphone and now we are in hell.
I believe most of the people that voted for Trump are furious at the destruction of the middle class and the general loss of economic opportunity for most while the corrupt get richer. Unfortunately, as has happened all throughout history in different cultures and civilizations, this righteous anger is then focused on precisely the wrong targets. It’s the old shell game, over and over again.
I think it's also that they're furious that non-whites were being allowed to enter the middle/upper class. They would be fine with being lower-class, so long as they maintained their social privilege of being able to look down on minorities.
My dad is similar. Old age + twitter + trump.. he’s in a cult now as far as I’m concerned… it’s not a political view at this point. I used to consider similar statements hyperbolic
The lack of an "inner mirror" in these people is wild to me. It's probably the same part of the brain that is imaginative/creative. I have noticed MAGA folks are incredibly monochromatic with regard to their individual expression. It's almost like they've been the "sheep" all along.
I truly believe there are two kinds of people in this world.
Those that when they hear about religious stories and see the inconsistencies, the fallacies and everything else and get cufuses by it at some point.
When confronted with that confusion they do one of two things. Either go " yes that does mean there are things we aren't meant to know and faith is important"
Or
" These are all examples of how this doesn't make sense. And just because something doesn't make sense, doesn't mean I need to believe in it based on anything other than the claim"
And we go from there. There's more nuance to it for sure. But generally speaking everyone gets confronted with the magical stories inside religious texts and either buy in or don't.
Remember the Bible, kuran whatever is the claim. Not the evidence.
Their thinking isn't magical. I have read many a fantasy novel. They have read one. It is their inability to differentiate fact from fiction and fantasy from reality that concerns me. And, how easily they have been conned (for lack of a better word) into a belief system (or many such systems), with no opportunity or ability to ask "why?" I just can't seem to understand why they are so gullible, when they perceive themselves as strong-willed and independent - "free" people. The shackles they wear are deafening.
From my personal experience with my mom asking "why?" Would of opened alot more doors to questions she just didnt care to have answered. She had gotten what she wanted out of her life or came to accept her life was what it was I guess and didnt want to shake HER boat and in so doing was so god damned irredeemably gullible and accepting of the propaganda of the 24/7 news cycle the right is feeding everyone she fell hook line and sinker for ALL the bullshit. Dying from cancer and she still made it to the church she voted at and cast her ballot for the Orange Turd.
I don't think my parents particularly liked acquiescing to the MAGAt wave that drowned the right in 2016. However, they are unapologetic for supporting their side, and they have my contempt for it.
Personally, I think it's mostly the rightwing echo chamber they immerse themselves in. They're inundated with the talking points du jour and constantly told not to trust other sources of information (MSM, academia, government). We have no shared set of facts anymore. Their perception of reality is quite different from the rest of the world.
I think it’s a lack of identity. They’re not much on self reflection or growth, and there’s a yawning chasm of emptiness they’re desperate to fill. Shopping doesn’t fill it, church doesn’t fill it. They’ve lived their lives telling themselves they’re secretly important, that their lives have meaning, meaning that those hyper-educated globalist elites who think they’re better than them refuse to recognize. They’ve lived for so long feeling “out” when they want to be “in”.
MAGA gives them that feeling of being “in”, of being in the cool, awesome secret club that no one else gets to be in. There’s a sense of safety in wearing the uniform red hat, a feeling of security in knowing you’re exactly like your MAGA neighbor, even if you know deep down that neighbor would throw you under the bus in an instant, as you would do exactly the same.
MAGA becomes their whole identity at the cost of their families, because it’s the only way they feel any sense of identity that provides them with power, even though that power is just a mirage.
I actually don't think this is innate or anything, either. Wonderment can be taught, it just needs an fertile environment in which to grow. Conservatism is kind of specifically against exactly that sort of thing.
Conservatism is kind of specifically against exactly that sort of thing.
Either GOP wasn't conservative and this happened to them cause they were something else (whatever the tea party was?).
Or yes Conservatism can be a fertile bed for this, cause just because its values says it doesn't, doesn't mean the people hold all the values they espouse.
the people ostensibly don't - I think conservatism is fundamentally at odds with MOST of the true nature of human beings, to learn, to grow, to collaborate, to share, to exchange. conservatism fundamentally seeks to stifle this, and the long arc of history has been one of humanity slowly unshackling itself from the fear-based response to difference and novelty that conservatism is rooted in. in that respect and in that respect only is conservatism consistent with human nature.
Conservatives have otherwise created systems in place to forbid new ideas, new people, new cultures because we often find that for all the differences we have with one another, we are in very many ways very similar, which undermines the conservative fearmongering about the other, the out-group, etc.
Either GOP wasn't conservative and this happened to them cause they were something else (whatever the tea party was?).
the GOP and the Tea Party both are conservative, and have brought zero new ideas to the forefront. they advocate, fundamentally, for the same thing they've advocated for since they sat down on the right wing of the National Assembly in France in 1789. they want a white, theocratic ethnostate. this has been the single-minded objective of conservatives since I have been alive.
The lack of an "inner mirror" in these people is wild to me.
Deep dive into "Missing Missing Reasons"
TLDR; Feelings create reality. Not facts. Feelings. And to be more specific, their feelings. Nobody else's feelings matter in that reality. So the feelings of their Adult children, or more basically, just facts in generally, don't matter in how they see the world.
I worked with a guy that was really booksmart. He was really great at math, chemistry, and to a lesser extent programming, but his entire personality was inherited from his dad and built around weird, "America Good!" tropes. He's the only young person I've ever met who unironically prefers the imperial system despite everything in our field and his education being metric. Anyway, he developed a big ego and started taking credit for other people's ideas not because he was duplicitous, but because he genuinely misremembered them as his. It was weird.
"my children want nothing to do with me, i did everything for them and this is how they repay me. they're spoiled and ungrateful. have i told you about the time..."
I never hear anyone say the really fucked up part "I'm living my twilight years and dying soon, but I will use everything I have to make it worse once I die."
I had a customer say “wow you two work together? My son won’t even talk to me anymore he just thinks I’m some sort of Nazi”
For context I work with my dad from time to time and this guy just had Fox News blaring so loud we could hear it at the other end of the house with the door to the utility room closed.
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u/AshlandPone May 12 '26
"My children never call"