Today I was asked “Don’t Trump supporters know they’re wrong?”

Yesterday I saw a tweet “If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?”
I would determine what type of argument they most value and invoke that type of argument to their detriment, offering logical discourse as an alternative.

“Don’t Trump supporters know they’re wrong?”

The question is invalid.

‘Wrong’ implies a morality. Any question of ‘right and wrong’ requires a concept of a godhead, obeisance to some authority capable of inviolate decisions. Telling someone they’re ‘wrong’ requires them to understand guilt and shame. That’s the province of religion and we’re suppose to keep church and state separate in America.

Questions of morality require a recognition of a higher authority, of something superior to one’s self.

 
I think what you’re after is ‘error’. What most Trump supporters can’t do is admit they made a mistake. This has nothing to do with Trump specifically. Western society especially has made it a point of honor – saving face – not to admit a mistake. Admitting a mistake causes two things immediately; it recognizes responsibility and it requires change.

The first, responsibility, is actionable in modern society. Whoever is responsible must make amends and now-a-days that’s financial. Nobody wants to be financially accountable so nobody admits responsibility for making a mistake.

The second is an admission that what’s being done isn’t working. Western society values ego over action. Changing one’s mind or plan – especially if the plan or decision is large in scope – equates to admitting a mistake was made.

So most Trump supporters aren’t likely to admit they made a mistake; the ‘alternative facts’ movement demonstrates this. Admitting ‘Trump in office’ is a mistake is the equivalent of making them responsible for children being separated from their families, et cetera.

Most people consider ‘separating children from their families’ a violation of their core principles. The basic, the most central elements of their foundational beliefs about themselves, their society, life itself, is now in question, up for grabs, forfeit, unreliable.

Do you think people are going to admit they allowed that level of error to be made in their name? Because that’s what they’re doing. Our society considers silence assent, concurrence. Edmund Burke said long ago ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’

People need to realize that what they allow to happen to others they overtly allow to happen to themselves. Allowing children to be taken from their families equates to their own children being taken from them.

You expect people to recognize that? To accept that and not act?

It’s much easier for them to go along. May their chains set lightly upon them. May we forget that they were our countrymen (paraphrasing Samuel Adams).

(Historical trivia 1: In January 2016 I told a group of friends that Trump would soon realize he might be able to win and would go for it. I also wrote The Gloves, They Go Boom! shortly before he took office. Enjoy.)

(Historical trivia 2: The reason most people find separating children from families unconscionable is because (in the West, anyway) children are still considered property, nonconsciously perhaps and it’s still there in our ethos. Nobody likes to be robbed.)