Mythbuster co-host Adam Savage had this to say as his introductory phrase: “I reject your reality and substitute my own.” The quote may not be exact, but the sentiment is captured. Perhaps not every day, but certainly every year, we all endure perceptible changes to everyday reality. Normalcy, in relation to reality, is built around firmer-than-loose, but not complete, societal agreement. Some might view the release of a new iPhone as reality-changing, while others reserve such events for matters of perceived historical import. Never mind how haughty it sounds, I may belong to the latter group. Or at least I think it’s fair to categorize Trump’s criminal conviction as an event of historical import.
Trumps’s conviction, I’m speaking now of his need to win, threatens the tolerance to current society, particularly that firmer-than-loose agreement underlying the bonds that hold together everyday life. The once underground murmurs, now passionately shouted in the streets, of diverse and common details of an increasingly intolerable daily life have met their champion in a man who has objectively never known a day like theirs. The only way he can think of his followers as are of the worst caricatures that have been made to represent the poor and their lot. Whatever empathy Trump has can only be superficial, which I don’t say to insult him, but to emphasize the vastly divergent lived experience between him and the majority of Americans—and if such a flagrant generalization is to be rejected, then—between him and me. If you find insulting the previous sentence, you only need to ask yourself: Does Trump live a life like mine? That’s not to say that I’ve outlined the extent of possible lived experiences. Yours, dear reader, was and is vastly divergent from mine. Just as mine is from someone who is objectively worse off than I am—however one wants to measure that. My point is not to limit this perception to two experiences, but rather to define Trump’s. His followers have been so deprived of attention that they pine for it and receive it, they wholeheartedly believe, from this man, himself a living caricature of the rich and obscene. And now, a felon who enough recognize as not a felon at all.
His followers have sacrificed their own eyes, their own ears, their own mouths, their own minds, and their own convictions for him. The tragedies, considered as such to remove any semblance of fault, that have befallen their Dear Leader must be very difficult to sit still about. The man faces no significant sanction—wealth of Trump’s size can easily help survive anything that isn’t literal jail time. Nonetheless, their Dear Leader has been disrespected and dragged through the mud. He has been publicly humiliated—but has he really? The trial is a sham, his followers are told; the charges aren’t valid, if they’re even known; the judge is corrupt; the jury is biased; the witnesses are bought—and it is they, the other side, the elusive but omnipresent deep state, or the liberal media, or the liberals themselves, or the fake Republicans, who try to shame his loyal supporters. I am yet surprised by the civility of Trump’s followers. Not because I think Trump supporters are inherently violent, but because the language that is used to defend Trump and respond to critics or adverse opinions of him are staged with such fervor as to make me question if another reality hasn’t been made, just for them. It probably has.
What do I mean? I mean, specifically citing GOP congressmen, a near uniform refusal to accept what to the rest of us is real: A conviction was returned based on evidence and testimony of Trump’s falsification of business records and Trump is now a felon, pending appeals overturning the result. The GOP response did not accept that outcome one bit. I think, for them, they’re still playing politics, because they know they can use this outrageous stance to their advantage with Trump’s crowd. But Trump’s crowd—I think—should actually believe the GOP congressmen, and Trump himself, when they are uniform in discrediting the judicial process and the verdict itself. All the supposed shortcomings and fatal flaws of this case and proceeding have been repeated like a script to be memorized and recited. I heard it myself listening to C-SPAN the day the jury announced its decision. I wasn’t on a long drive so I use this as my metric, completely circumstantial and therefore completely invalid, for how many people might feel like this. It was about a fifteen-minute drive, and two callers had dialed the Republic line. Both sounded, tonally, like Donald Trump. Slightly nasal, with an upward tilt to the ends of words, the callers said the things we’ve heard him say plenty of times ourselves—and we don’t follow him like these people do. Imagine the Trump speeches a typical supporter has absorbed, like trained A.I., ready to answer any question about Trump as Trump himself would answer.
“It was a corrupt judge. This was all coordinated by the Biden White House. How can someone be persecuted after the statute of limitations has passed? Anytime Trump wanted something Trump never got it, but if the Government asked for it, the Judge gave it to them.”
The people are already parroting what Trump says about his new reality, which is now their reality. In his reality, he is treated unfairly. He is battling a system that treats his followers unfairly. It is therefore not his reality, his believers think, that is being pursued, but rather their own. How else can one explain such an attachment, if not as expressive of fealty to one’s defender? And the people must believe that the GOP believes Trump’s criminal conviction is an affront to their reality. Far beyond an affront, in my opinion—if the belief were genuine—but an existential threat.
The verdict, the justice system, have all been described by GOP congressmen as the most corrupt, illegitimate, un-American abominations, in no uncertain terms. Democrats have unleashed a new reality, they assert, where the justice system is politicized, and government power is weaponized, against one’s political opponents. To hear them say it, Trump is the greatest saint among us who faces the most ludicrous, made-up charges. Again, the politicians just see the use of these inflammatory phrases as fundraising soundbites. But followers have to increasingly question why they should be forced to live alongside, never mind share the same country as, a political party that plays so dirty, that’s corrupt beyond fair dealing, to say nothing of salvation. While the GOP continues to paint its colleagues on the other side as vengeful pedophiles hell-bent on destroying this country, it’s only a matter of time before the David DePape’s of the world respond accordingly.
