Publisher's Synopsis
Have you ever tried reasoning with someone who supports Donald J. Trump as president? If you decide to try I sincerely wish you the best of luck. The simplest of questions can become a battle of wills where they will say anything simply to avoid admitting that they're wrong. Even math has somehow become debatable. A spokesperson early on in the Trump administration used the term "alternative facts," and that has now become "Truth isn't truth!" from the president's lawyer. Lies fall from his mouth and through his twitter feed like they can't wait to escape his mind. Conspiracy theories abound, and Trump's supplicants gleefully eat them up. He is just like them after all. It's been over a decade since I let myself get sucked into debating people online, and in that time I've seen a definite pattern towards disregarding facts emerge that is quite disturbing. After watching the election of Donald J. Trump I feel most Republicans have taken a leap into La-La Land to become nothing but cheap political hypocrites, and I wrote the following as a way to offer some #Resistance of my own. With the title including the term GOP cult, let's assume that you assume I'm a liberal progressive, and you'd be right. This book isn't so much about my politics as it is about my attempts to discuss policies with conservatives over the years. If given the opportunity, I'd like to tell you why I plan to vote for Democrats for the foreseeable future, and why I have come to see the Republican Party as one currently suffering from a cult mentality that believes in things I feel are not only antithetical to my idea of America, but which are dangerous to democracy itself. It might be hubris, but that seems to be the in thing these days, so please indulge me in thinking that I might have some wisdom to impart. During my gradual journey into the online political comment sections, I certainly didn't think of myself as a troll, or that I was on my way to becoming one. Cut to years later following many fruitless encounters and I've found very little policy substance is known amongst many of those who vote for the one with the R by their name. Heavy charge I know, but my part-time adventure became a decade long quest to find what I felt had become my unicorn; a conservative who not only understood the policies they claimed to support, but one who could rationally explain why I should support them without attacking me as being a "godless liberal." I'm still looking.Over time I came to see online trolls as the precursors to American politics, their comments often becoming the very talking points used by the GOP. Similar to the way FOX News predicted what Trump would have tweeted about that day. In this layman's opinion, political comment sections are the canary in the coal mine that our society needs to pay attention to. It's the unfiltered look at how people talk to each other when they think they're truly free to speak their mind. It's also a glimpse into how people selectively decide what or who to believe based on their chosen media consumption, and how they easily dismiss any facts that challenge their pre-conceived notions, which by definition become intentionally uninformed beliefs.What I discovered is that while I never changed any conservative minds or got them to admit they were wrong about anything, the ones I had the most intense arguments with often respected my conviction and my will to fight for what I believed in. Whether or not it's a facade, many voters responded to Trump merely because he projects strength. Democrats could learn something from that, but from the strength of conviction that is backed up by the facts, which are easier to believe in.
