“We’ve got lots of theories. We just don’t have any evidence.”
--Rudy Giuliani, as testified by Rusty Bowers in the J6 Committee Hearings
After more than 60 lawsuits brought by the former president and his allies failed to overturn the 2020 election results, Cudd’s brother Jarrod thought, “Maybe she’ll come back off the ledge here.” Even if she felt that her actions at the Capitol were righteous, overwhelmingly, others found them repugnant.
Instead, Cudd doubled down. When pressed, she says she regrets entering the Capitol, but she’s clearly still angry at how she and other Sixers were treated. The experience galvanized her, proving her worst fears about the government, Democrats, and the media.
Olga Khazan, "The Insurrectionist in the Flower Shop"
I think the Trump superfans are terrified of being wrong. I suspect they know that for many years they’ve made a terrible mistake—that Trump and his coterie took them to the cleaners and the cognitive dissonance is now rising to ear-splitting, chest-constricting levels. And so they will literally threaten to kill people like Kinzinger (among others) if that’s what it takes to silence the last feeble voice of reason inside themselves.
We know from studies (and from experience as human beings) that being wrong makes us feel uncomfortable. It’s an actual physiological sensation, and when compounded by humiliation, it becomes intolerable. The ego cries out for either silence or assent. In the modern media environment, this fear expresses itself as a demand for the comfort of massive doses of self-justifying rage delivered through the Fox or Newsmax or OAN electronic EpiPen that stills the allergic reaction to truth and reason.
--Tom Nichols, "What Are Trump Supporters So Afraid Of?"
Bottom line: Admitting you're wrong requires that you be a grown-up, that you take responsibility for your mistakes, and when appropriate to make amends. In reading the story of Jenny Cudd, the flower-shop insurrectionist, you see the profile of a woman who is in many ways admirable and spirited, but she reminds me of people I know who are dry drunks. They may not be drinking, but they're still alcoholics. Nothing changes until they admit they are alcoholics. Yes, it's humiliating. Yes, denial is so much easier. Yes, it's so much easier to blame others. But if they face up to it, they'll get over the humiliation, and they''ll realize that there addiction doesn't define them.
Overcoming the fear of humiliation is the first step toward becoming who you really are. It then becomes possible to learn that your identity and dignity subsists in something more deeply true, and does not depend on the good opinion of others. Only after the getting through the fear of humiliation can recovery begin. To live in thrall to the fear of humiliation and to the hatred of those who make you feel humiliated is to live inside a prison of your own making. The prison door is not locked. You can walk out any time you choose to. It's a frightening prospect to live in the world outside, but it really is so much better there than inside.
But instead of walking out and going to an AA meeting, Cudd is like the drunk who organizes meetings with other drunks where they all agree that getting drunk is like a sacrament--nothing nobler or more beautiful. How can all of us be wrong, right? Their drug of choice is MAGA.