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Megyn Kelly admits Trump is in cognitive decline. It’s not just him [1]
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Date: 2023-12-23
Admin note: This story’s headline, originally "Megyn Kelly admits Trump is in Cognitive Decline because he and all MAGAs are."has been changed to make clearer what Kelly said, and the author’s response to it.
Reposted from My SubStack
On the Glenn Beck show Megyn Kelly admits that “he’s lost a step, several steps” when talking about Trump’s weakening cognitive ability. Frankly, it’s worse than that - he’s falling into full-on delusion. His repeated claims that he won the 2020 election isn’t just because he’s decided to make that claim for his own advantage, it’s actually a sickness.
This is a common thing that I’ve seen with MAGAs, it’s willful mass delusion. These people have taken Confirmation Bias into a near clinical condition. Their belief’s about the election, about the pandemic, about the vaccines, about the January 6 attack (which they claims was “totally peaceful”), about Antifa and BLM (who were somehow the “violent” part of J6), and about Trump’s outstanding civil and criminal cases are more than just a difference of opinion. It’s not just being badly informed, it’s a difference in how you perceive reality. It’s a difference in how you accept, analyze and process facts.
These people actively and violently reject any information that goes against their preferred narratives. They simply can’t even listen to any view that is different from theirs. They refuse to even consider any new contrasting information. It is simply discarded out of hand. You can tell them that every court case that Trump filed during the election failed and they come up with a convenient excuse as to why that somehow doesn’t matter. [They were Democrat courts] They’ve all been indoctrinated into a narcissistic self-aggrandizing delusion.
Surveys of hundreds of fervent Trump voters, whom researchers refer to as Make American Great Again (MAGA) supporters, reveal strong beliefs that the election was stolen; that COVID-19 is a bioweapon from China; and that the riot was the work of antifa. The data, collected just before and after the Capitol riot, is believed to be the only information of its kind, shedding light on MAGA supporters’ opinions about race, gender, the pandemic and the 2020 election. The data also uncovers demographic information that may dispel some myths about hard-core Trump supporters: Nearly half of MAGA adherents, for example, roughly half earn at least $50,000 a year, considered middle-income by many standards, and approximately one-third have at least a college degree. “Right now, these people feel like they’re losing their country and their identity. They feel like they’re being displaced by communities of color, by feminists and by immigrants. These people are motivated by what they see as an existential threat to their way of life,” said Christopher Sebastian Parker, professor of political science at the UW and co-author of the research. […] Highlights of the findings include: Nearly all (98%) of respondents said they believe Trump’s election fraud claims and distrust the actual results of the presidential election;
About 90% said voting “shouldn’t be easier”
More than two-thirds said Trump bears no responsibility for the events of Jan. 6 – roughly the same percentage that laid the blame on antifa
At least 90% said Trump was honest about COVID-19, and that state and local government restrictions related to the pandemic should be loosened
Almost all said they were concerned that “forces are changing our country for the worse” and “the American way of life is disappearing” The findings related to “difference”– race, gender and immigration status — provide an additional lens through which to view the MAGA movement, Parker said. On race, significant majorities of respondents agreed with statements like “Black people should work their way up like other minorities” and “Black people would be as well off as white people if they tried.” Along the same lines, a majority disagreed with statements such as “Slavery/discrimination made working up difficult for Black people” and “Black people have gotten less than they deserve.” Similar themes emerged in the results regarding women and immigration. A majority of respondents agreed with statements such as “Women interpret innocent remarks as sexist,” “Feminists are seeking more power than men,” and “Immigration is changing our culture for the worse.”
These people are modern-day Nazis. They are the New Reich, same as the Old Reich. Birth of a Nation and the KKK reborn.
All of these beliefs are bullshit. Every single one. Very clear empirical, factual, documented and confirmed evidence can disprove all of it. But a true MAGA will never be moved and never be convinced. That is decidedly not how normal humans function in the real world. They don’t look at contrasting information, analyze and consider more than a single possibility - test each option for its accuracy and viability - then make a reasoned and rational decision about what makes the most sense.
They believe whatever makes them feel better. They believe everything that’s ever gone wrong is somebody else’s fault, not the fault of anyone like them and they — themselves personally, their party and Trump — had nothing to do with it going wrong even when they quite literally did.
The pandemic is the fault of China, it doesn’t matter that Trump botched his response to it, wrongly downplayed it, wrongly recommended Ivermectin and bleach to combat it, he didn’t give a dime from “Operation: War Speed” to Pfizer, the company that first developed a vaccine, and consequently, more Americans died than in any other nation on earth and the death rate due to Covid and early dropping of actual CDC mitigation efforts in Red States meant that 15% more of them died than in Blue states and that gap increased to 43% after the vaccine was introduced.
The study looked at deaths in both Florida and Ohio during the first 22 months of the pandemic and found the overall excess death rate of Republican voters was 15% higher than that of Democrats. The gap widened further once COVID-19 vaccines were introduced. In general, there was a 20.5 percentage-point (95% prediction interval [PI], 15.6 to 25.6 percentage points) increase in weekly death counts in Florida and Ohio between March 2020 and December 2021. Excess death rates were 2.8 percentage points (15%) higher for Republican voters compared with Democratic voters (95% PI, 1.6 to 3.7 percentage points). The higher excess death rate observed among Republican voters may continue through subsequent stages of the pandemic. After May of 2021, roughly 1 month after COVID-19 vaccines became widely available, the gap between Republicans and Democrats further widened, to 7.7 percentage points (95% PI, 6.0 to 9.3 percentage points) in the adjusted analysis, or a 43% difference, the authors said. The difference was seen in Florida, but was most pronounced in Ohio.
Trump literally got more of them killed, and they still love him for it. That’s not normal. Instead, they blame Democrats for the lot in their lives when just about everything that’s gone wrong in the last 3 years - started on Trump’s watch.
He was the guy in charge when the pandemic hit, he was the guy who threw out the pandemic response plan and took pandemic planners out of the NSC, he was the guy who had 14% unemployment - losing 6 million jobs - he was the guy in charge when oil prices started rising in March of 2020 and he was the guy who forced Saudi Arabia to cut their oil production by threatening to pull our military out of the country.
WASHINGTON/LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) - As the United States pressed Saudi Arabia to end its oil price war with Russia, President Donald Trump gave Saudi leaders an ultimatum. In an April 2 phone call, Trump told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that unless the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) started cutting oil production, he would be powerless to stop lawmakers from passing legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from the kingdom, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The threat to upend a 75-year strategic alliance, which has not been previously reported, was central to the U.S. pressure campaign that led to a landmark global deal to slash oil supply as demand collapsed in the coronavirus pandemic - scoring a diplomatic victory for the White House. Trump delivered the message to the crown prince 10 days before the announcement of production cuts. The kingdom’s de facto leader was so taken aback by the threat that he ordered his aides out of the room so he could continue the discussion in private, according to a U.S. source who was briefed on the discussion by senior administration officials.
But they think oil prices went up because Biden didn’t allow drilling in ANWAR, which nobody was drilling at the time, and he didn’t allow more drilling on public land that wasn’t being drilled on, and he didn’t build the Keystone XL extension even though there already is a main Keystone pipeline that was already open, and already in use. But the trick of it is that the oil flowing through it is owned by Canada — not America — so it’s not a domestic supply, we would still have to import it to use it and also it’s Tar sands oil which can only be used to make diesel not gasoline. Also, we are still now “energy independent” with record high-level oil exports.
U.S. crude oil exports in the first half of 2023 averaged 3.99 million barrels per day (b/d), which is a record high for the first half of a year since 2015, when the U.S. ban on most crude oil exports from the United States was repealed. In the first half of 2023, crude oil exports were up 650,000 b/d (19%) compared with the first half of 2022.
Rather than accept or acknowledge any of these facts, MAGAS just think Democrats have done nothing but “tear down” the country.
If you feel that the country is literally leaving you - it’s “being destroyed” they always say - what are you willing to do to bring it all back? And what will you be willing to do to keep it if you get it back?
And yet, it's obvious even to Megyn Kelly that Trump is in cognitive decline. He keeps referring to Biden as "Obama" time and time again and it's not just him being "ironic" with the argument that Obama is "really in control" - he's stated that he "Beat Obama" in the 2020 election which is literally insane.
And many MAGAs have openly said the exact same thing, somehow Obama is really running things and also so is Hillary and Bill Clinton. They think Biden worships “Satan” and don’t realize that 88% of Democrats feel that Biden is a “very religious” Catholic.
Then there’s the issue of political prosecutions that Trump claims Biden has implemented. It doesn’t matter that Biden doesn’t tell Merrick Garland what to do, and that Garland has said that he would immediately resign if he did. It doesn’t matter that Garland doesn’t tell Jack Smith what to do and that Letitia James, Alvin Bragg and Fanni Willis don’t work for Biden - they work for the voters in New York and Georgia.
But it’s not like doing this - if he gets back into power - is a new idea for Trump.
Trump not only told Bill Barr to prosecute Joe Biden when he was President - which resulted in David Weiss being assigned to investigate Hunter and Joe Biden - he also asked for Hillary Clinton and James Comey to be investigated which is what put John Durham on that case. Then after he left office he tried to sue Clinton and Comey for “rigging the 2016 election” but the case was thrown out for a complete lack of merit and he and his lawyers were sanctioned $1 Million for it - so he's already been trying to prosecute and persecute his political enemies since basically 2017. Trying to blackmail Zelensky into investigating Biden based on rumors from a Russian spy - Andriy Derkach - is just another instance in that same effort.
Megyn Kelly says that if Judge Chukan doesn't allow Trump to go free on bond after he's convicted in the Election Interference case "The Country will Burn." I think that's wrong - first of all I think she’ll probably let him remain free pending appeal just like Steve Bannon who’s been criminally convicted but hasn’t seen a second of jail. But assuming he gets convicted at all, which he might, he’ll keep running for President — but then if he *loses* again they will go ballistic. I think that there won't be riots and demonstrations in the street because Republicans don't really believe that peaceful public demonstrations actually can change or impact policy. [You see rallies, usually led by Democrats that are Pro-Palestine but you don’t see public rallies in support of Israel by Republicans. They don’t work like that.]
They only believe in *Force* so it won't be peaceful, it will be a series of violent attacks on any vulnerable target they can find. They'll attack the FBI as one of them attempted in Cincinnati, they'll attack the Judge and her family as another one of them did with Judge Esther Salas, murdering her husband and son, they'll try to attack Jack Smith and Merrick Garland, they'll attack Democrats if they can find them the same way they attacked Nancy Pelosi's husband - they'll attack black people for voting for Biden. They'll attack Jews for supporting Democrats. This will happen as physical assaults as we've seen against Asians because of Covid, shootings as we saw against Tree Of Life Synagogue (attacking Jews), the El Paso Walmart (attacking Latinos), in Buffalo (attacking black people) with Boogaloo Bois in Oakland (attacking federal officers and police) and more bombings like Cesar Sayoc attempted (attacking the media) and were placed at the RNC and DNC offices (attacking politicians) in Washington. They’ll violently attack school boards and hospitals that provide Transgender care - they’ll march with Neo-Nazis but they won’t take any responsibility at all for any of it.
They won’t even admit it’s happening, they just say that it’s all “random lone actors” who have nothing to do with each other -- they won’t admit that it’s part of a planned and coordinated “movement.” It won't be exactly like a "Civil War" it will be more like asymmetric terrorist attacks erupting all over the country. The War of Words that has existed between Democrats and Republicans will explode into fights, gun battles and road rage. It's frankly, already been happening - but it will be more common and more frequent. There's no telling exactly how bad it could get, particularly if -- in these cases -- the police decide to stand down and side with the Trumpers the way the FBI rank and file has been reportedly sympathetic to the J6 rioters.
If some of the police and FBI selectively stop protecting the public if they happen to be Black, Asian, Latino, Jewish or LGBTQ that’s when Fit will really hit the Shan.
They may not get their “Storm” or their “Day of the Rope” but it won’t be good.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/23/2213234/-Megyn-Kelly-admits-Trump-is-in-Cognitive-Decline-because-he-and-all-MAGAs-are?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
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