Trump says believe me
Frankly, Trump’s MAGAspeak makes Orwell’s doublespeak sound credible. For example, Trump could tell his supporters the sun is shining, while they’re standing in the rain listening to him, and they would believe him.
Here is the commandment Trump handed down during the early days of his presidency:
Stick with us. Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. … What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.
(CNN, January 25, 2018)
And Trump’s supporters obey in ways even God would envy. Indeed, nothing betrays the power Trump knows he has over them quite like the way he used a Sharpie to redirect the path of a hurricane to spare them its wrath.
Of course, that hurricane, Dorian, made a mockery of his Sharpie forecast. It slammed right into them. But even that reality did not diminish their belief and faith in him.
MAGA supporters believe anything Trump says
To appreciate his brainwashing effect, observe the way his supporters cheer his blatant lies and ignorant statements as if they were gospel truths.
The following is a cartoon of MAGA supporters leaving a campaign rally last week. It illustrates the religious-like conversion they invariably experience.
Most people thought he was only joking when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue without losing any support. No doubt, in ordinary times, Trump would be merely a national laughingstock. But these are no ordinary times, and we laugh at our peril.
Indeed, the joke has been on us since Trump descended the gilded escalator in his gilded tower to announce his presidential bid. Now, his resurgent reelection campaign portends America’s autocratic doom.