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When the Wheels Won't Turn [1]
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Date: 2025-09-15
I’ve been watching a video podcast on YouTube called The Necessary Conversation. Two liberal adult children in their 30s discuss current events with their Trump-loving parents, who are in their 60s or maybe early 70s.
I had almost decided to stop watching because the parents made me so angry. I live in a part of Ohio that is about 60% MAGA. Some of my neighbors fly Trump flags. (One flies flags of the losers in various conflicts: Nazi, Confederate. He likes to change them up. There must have been a sale on losers’ flags.)
I’ve written before about my interactions with these neighbors and, before that, with the railroaders I used to work with. I like most of my neighbors. I want to like all of them. I try to understand and find common ground. But this podcast was changing that.
The parents on screen struck me as disingenuous. Dogmatic. Unwilling to acknowledge facts, even when presented through media they trust like Fox News, or even Trump’s own words. I was starting to dislike them, and by extension, all MAGA people. I didn’t like what that was doing to me.
Then came a moment on the video that I replayed several times.
The son pressed his father on a contradiction, pointing out that he had said one thing and then the opposite just moments later. The father paused, hemmed and hawed, and then said: “If Trump said it, it’s true.”
The son pushed again, and the father got angry, uncomfortable, dismissive. Finally he repeated: “If Trump said it, it’s true. I believe Trump.” And then he visibly shut down.
That face, the expression, the process, all that was familiar.
Thirty years ago, I adopted a sibling group of five young children. One of them, David, had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. FAS can change the brain. In his case, it blunted imagination.
At first that seems small. David wasn’t interested in books, dolls, or pretend play. He preferred action. But imagination is how we learn cause and effect. A child who can imagine looks forward in time: “If I do this, then that will happen.” Without it, foresight is broken.
David was gullible, easily influenced, and eager to please. Even when he knew something was wrong, he couldn’t always hold the line against the influence of other kids. So I gave him a tool. I told him to say: “My mama said no.” And then walk away. We practiced it over and over, until he could use it in the heat of the moment.
It worked. At the park, a bigger kid might suggest he jump from too high on the jungle gym. I’d see the wheels spinning in David’s head, conflict building in his face. Then: “My mama said no.” His whole body would relax. The struggle was over. He’d been a good boy, he’d chosen safety, and soon he was distracted by something else.
That’s exactly what I saw in the MAGA father’s face on the podcast. He’d been shown his contradiction, but his mental gears slipped. He couldn’t parse it out. So he fell back on the phrase that made him safe: “If Trump said it, I believe it.”
The inner tension was gone. The answer was given. He was a good boy again, loyal to the authority he trusts.
And now I wonder how many people are MAGA because it’s a shortcut for thinking? A way to end the struggle when contradictions pile up? It's what psychologists call a heuristic, a mental shortcut.
Some folks can’t be bothered to parse out complex ideas. Some may never have been taught how. Some shut down when confronted with new ways of thinking. So they fall back on the shortcut, “If he said it, it must be true.”
It makes them feel safe. But what does it mean for democracy when millions of adults need the same kind of shortcut I once taught my brain-injured child?
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