Like any competent quack, Trump focuses on a winning vibe, not a factual case. He positions himself as an alternative to “the scientists” and “the doctors” such that followers have to choose between trusting them or him. This process, in extreme forms, leads to what some psychologists refer to as identity fusion. William Swann, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, coined the term in 2009 while studying theories of individual identity. Once fused with a group or leader, he noticed, followers seem tied to them in such a way that things are true because the leader said them. Dystopian as that may seem, it can be a coping mechanism: Orienting your sense of truth around a person can be more comforting than doing so around a nebulous, uncertain, or otherwise threatening reality. Fusion is not appealing because it makes sense; it is appealing because it alleviates the cognitive and emotional burden of thinking....
When Americans are polled about individual elements of the Affordable Care Act, the health-care law put in place by President Barack Obama, for example, they approve of them. Medicare, which the law slightly expanded, is one of the most highly favorable programs among people of both parties. Yet Trump campaigned on repealing the ACA.
The freedom from scrutiny Trump now enjoys from many of his followers is reflected in an ignorance even of where he stands on the pandemic. In the survey of 4,000 Americans, 81 percent of Trump voters who believed that masks should be required also believed that Trump agrees. He has not supported a mask mandate, and has barely even endorsed their voluntary use. (Source)
Sane Americans need to understand what they are fighting. It's not about policy; it's about mind control. Not just Trump, but Republican leadership and the conservative media have almost half the country hypnotized. If Dems don't find a way to snap the spell, then at best stasis and gridlock continues, but at worst the oligarchs win. And the worst is more likely because stasis favors the oligarchs.