For years, former Republican speechwriter Peter Wehner has wrestled with the MAGA movement that has taken over his former party — “struggling to understand how to view individuals who have not just voted for former president Donald Trump but who celebrate him, who don’t merely tolerate him but who constantly defend his lawlessness and undisguised cruelty.”
In his latest essay for The Atlantic, Wehner says he no longer can give them the benefit of the doubt for supporting “the most comprehensively corrupt man in the history of American politics, certainly in presidential politics.”
In a blistering indictment of the MAGA army, he concludes that Donald Trump’s followers know better, understand the sobering risks to democracy the revenge-promising convicted felon and presumed Republican presidential nominee poses, but don’t care.
Because they refuse to admit they’ve been taken, they are complicit, he writes:
“Motivated ignorance refers to willfully blinding oneself to facts. It’s choosing not to know. In many cases, for many people, knowing the truth is simply too costly, too psychologically painful, too threatening to their core identity. Nescience is therefore incentivized; people actively decide to remain in a state of ignorance. If they are presented with strong arguments against a position they hold, or compelling evidence that disproves the narrative they embrace, they will reject them. Doing so fends off the psychological distress of the realization that they’ve been lying to themselves and to others. ...
“In the case of MAGA world, the lies that Trump supporters believe, or say they believe, are obviously untrue and obviously destructive. Since 2016 there’s been a ratchet effect, each conspiracy theory getting more preposterous and more malicious. Things that Trump supporters wouldn’t believe or accept in the past have since become loyalty tests. Election denialism is one example. The claim that Trump is the target of “lawfare,” victim to the weaponization of the justice system, is another. ...
“Some of them are cynical and know better; others are blind to the cultlike world to which they belong. Still others have convinced themselves that Trump, although flawed, is the best of bad options. It’s a “binary choice,” they say, and so they have talked themselves into supporting arguably the most comprehensively corrupt man in the history of American politics, certainly in presidential politics. ...
Wehner’s formula for assessing their moral culpability is determined by ... a) how absurd the lies are that they are espousing; b) how intentionally they are avoiding evidence that exposes the lies because they are deeply invested in the lie; and c) how consequential the lie is.
He concludes: “A generation from now, and probably sooner, it will be obvious to everyone that Trump supporters can’t claim they didn’t know.”
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