Dad knows

"Trust no one and nothing except me." That's a literal no hyperbole cult.

I talk to this Trump supporter from time to time and ask why he doesn't trust all these groups but singularly trusts a conman like Trump. Nothing substantive. It just boils down to blind religious faith. A cult.

What does your coworker trust Trump to actually do?
I trust Trump to be Trump and do anything feed his own ego.
- They're one of those, "Nice guy... Little on the dumb side" kind of people.
  They truly have no foresight and no capacity to see in the rear-view mirror. They've fallen prey to the manosphere youtube / twitter / social media fake news and have been told that any outside news is nonsense. They truly live in an alternate universe where Trump kicks ass and Democrats are the bad guys.
  Legit, he completely fell hook, line, and sinker for the "Democrats were the Slavers, so that means they're bad today" thing.

Back in 2015 Trump pled 'no contest' and refunded the fees for his sham University. By doing so he admitted that the whole thing was a con from the start. When I pointed this out to a MAGoo online the response was that the students were the ones at fault because they hadn't read the paperwork.

That was a civil lawsuit, and Trump didn't personally "plead" to anything, because he was never charged with a crime in that matter.
- I like John Oliver's take on Trump's lawsuit history. Trump was in more court cases than all the lawyers on all the Law And Order shows, from all the franchises.
I'm sure no student read any paperwork. What a dumb statement.
Imagine holding onto an internet argument of any kind from 9 years ago.

That's it.

Peek into certain discords, subreddits, and so on. Or you're uncle's facebook feed. People live in different words, where these institutions really are already 'gone.'

IMO engagement optimizing social media is the root cause of all this, and I'm not sure I can ever forgive the major profiters for that.

Social media surely makes it worse but blaming the problem on that lets individuals off the hook. At the end of the day it is everyone's responsibility to discern what is true from what is not. Being led astray does not remove your role in allowing that to happen.
- I'm not sure I entirely agree about the personal responsibility.
  I mean, it feels right that people are responsible for the views they hold and the actions they take based on them.
  Otoh it also feels like blaming the addict for their addiction or the cult member for being exploited.
  I'm really conflicted and I don't think I can reach a clear cut conclusion.
And now we're at a point where if social media sites take steps to reduce political content, the addicts scream censorship heh