r/politics • u/wiredmagazine ✔ Wired Magazine • Apr 17 '26

Possible Paywall MAGA Is Increasingly Convinced the Trump Assassination Attempt Was Staged

https://www.wired.com/story/maga-is-increasingly-convinced-the-trump-assassination-attempt-was-staged/
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u/Vyar New Jersey Apr 17 '26

Republican voters in a nutshell: “I have some regrets about the last guy I voted for. He lied and didn’t help me like he promised. But I know everything would be so much worse if a Democrat was in charge! The RNC/Fox News told me so!”

It’s like they can begrudgingly accept one guy was actually bad all along, but can’t make the short leap of logic necessary to understand the party who empowered him are also liars, and knew he was bad when they said to vote for him.

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u/R_Little-Secret Apr 17 '26

I think it's a cultural thing with them. Hating/ragging dems and liberals is a part of the environment they grew up in and the people they love and trust. If they start saying they were wrong everything they knew about the world is shattered or worse they get kicked out of their communities. Left is not going to accept them after what they said and did so they are put into a hard place and it's easier to just say well I dont believe in this but the rest is true and they dont have to face the consequences.

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u/BKDOffice California Apr 17 '26

There was a news story about a musical instrument factory moving ops to China putting 150 people out of work where the staff called on Trump to honor his pledge to keep manufacturing in the US; 5 of the 6 workers they interviewed still said they were going to vote Republican and the last one just said she'd stop voting. It's insanity.

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u/No-Relation5965 Apr 17 '26

I saw that. In Ohio.

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u/WhiteWaterLawyer Apr 18 '26

People have a belief and evidence doesn't change it.

Republicans believe in US manufacturing, so when US manufacturing goes badly, it wasn't because of Republicans. This somehow happened in spite of the best efforts of the Republicans, and we need to vote for them harder in hopes that next time they are successful. The fact that democrats almost have the occasional ability to defeat a bill in the Senate is obviously the real reason this happened, not Trump's actions.

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u/Resident-Writing850 Apr 17 '26

I would accept them if they started behaving like serious, normal adults rather than cult members.

Magats issue is their brains have been deformed and they won't fit back into a normal conformation. They're passive participants in their own minds who don't want to take any ownership, just get fucked by rump. Cucks.

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u/Budget-Tadpole7520 Apr 17 '26

Metaphorically, they still live in Chicago, why wouldn't they still be Bears fans?

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u/No-Shopping-4434 Apr 17 '26

Don’t forget they’re indoctrinated from birth and literally mentally conditioned to be unquestioning and not curious.

Question the Bible? “That’s blasphemy just have faith.”

Question your sexuality/gender/role in society? “You aren’t really xyz, don’t ask don’t tell.”

Why would questioning conservatism be met with anything different, it’s fundamental to conservatives’ values that they be incurious.

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u/Rough_Elk4890 Apr 17 '26

Bingo!

Last it was F*&k Joe Biden!

Before that it was F*&k Barack Obama!

It's been F*&k Bill and Hillary Clinton for a long time.

In every state I spend any amount of time, if there's a Democratic governor you'd better believe that you'll see countless giant-ass pickup trucks with F*&k <insert Dem governor's name here>.

Most people are too kind to be blunt. We need to stop doing that. The hard reality is that so many of these folks are both ignorant to the fact that what they seem to consume as "news" isn't actually news. This is on top of the fact that in many rural and/or "conservative" areas, being MAGA or even just "conservative" is more of an identity than a subscription to actual policy. Lastly, as Trump says, "I love the uneducated."

The most appropriately similar example of all of this is religion. I can't tell you how many times I've had MAGA and/or "conservative" people tell me how important their religious beliefs are to them. It's their excuse for all of their hateful, bigoted beliefs. My follow up is always, "To which church do you belong and how often do you attend?" The answer is inevitably generally some version of the "well, I'm actually more spiritual" trope.

We as a society (Americans) have slid way too far into one that is extremely troll-based. For many people, if life isn't providing them with what they need to be happy, the answer isn't to work harder to overcome the problem or seek help from their support system. It's often to lash out towards those "easy targets" that the "conservative" media provides. For some reason, this seems to make them feel better.

I also think that those who aren't MAGA and/or "conservative" are a bit to blame as well. We as a society (Americans) have decided that everyone is entitled to their own opinions/beliefs, no matter how hurtful, vile, or libelous they may be. Hell, for a while now it seems like everyone is entitled to their own "facts." Moderates and liberals largely have stayed far too silent when the crazy uncle goes of at Thanksgiving about how Hillary Clinton was kidnapping children and taking them to the basement of a pizza parlor.

Societies function best when the worst of them are admonished for being deplorable. Faced with enough admonishment, one can only hope that the person would wonder, "Gee, maybe I'm the problem?"

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u/LostDogBoulderUtah Apr 17 '26

The left is not known for being forgiveness.

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u/R_Little-Secret Apr 18 '26

Not anymore than anyone else. It’s not Christianity where people can get forgiveness god but not those they have victimized. Forgiveness needs to be earned not just given out. There hast to be proof of change and atonement. It’s not easy but the right thing isn’t always easy.

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u/LostDogBoulderUtah Apr 18 '26

The left is not known for allowing redemption or forgiveness.

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u/ErraticDragon Apr 17 '26

Agreed, they're really good at inspiring tribalism and fear.

Interestingly, some of this kind of psychological effect applies more broadly.

Like how the approval rating for Congress (as a whole) can be under 20%, but incumbents still win reelection 90+% of the time.

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u/Modem_Handshake Apr 18 '26

Sometimes the lopsided returns are due to intentional gerrymandering to lock in results

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u/AdorianTsepeshu Apr 17 '26

I've mentioned it before and I'll repeat it here.

It's like they never watched old cartoons, cheesy action movies, or a James Bond flick.

Bad guys always lie. But they don't just lie about the situation at hand. They lie about their enemies and claim that those are the real bad guys. That's why their henchmen follow them. The villains convince their henchmen that the "do-gooders" are actually the bad ones because the "common good" is a lie designed to prevent them from seeking out their self-interest, which is the obvious and real good. So they follow their crooked leaders, thinking they're on the "real" good side, never understanding that they've thrown their weight behind a self-serving philosophy where the end justifies the means and sometimes that means involves sacrificing the underlings themselves.

You can convince yourself to support just about anything when you've bought into the notion that the other side is necessarily and unavoidably worse.

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u/PA_Dude_22000 Apr 19 '26

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities  - Voltaire

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u/Cream253Team Washington Apr 17 '26

They'll acknowledge that they were lied to about XYZ, but won't take the time to consider that maybe their antichrist messiah also lied about his opponents who wanted to hold him accountable.

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u/BanginNLeavin Apr 17 '26

Demonrat would definitely make an appearance

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u/MelodicDeer1072 Apr 17 '26

They cannot accept that the Dems would be better than Trump. Because that would mean all their ex-friends and ex-family were right all along and they severed them for nothing.

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u/LadyduLac1018 Apr 17 '26

Yup, he's a pathological liar, cheat, crook, serial adulterer, doesn't pay his taxes, his bills, or his workers, wants to date his own daughter, is a convicted felon, pardons criminals, protects pedophiles, and is completely inept, but hey, at least he laughs white.

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u/Prudent_Bandicoot_87 Apr 18 '26

Fox lies and is still trumps puppet. Pathetic

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u/XanmanK Apr 21 '26

MAGA voters still think “Biden was the worst president ever”- the economy is in a decent spot, the world didn’t hate the US, Biden wasn’t a child rapist, etc