this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 117 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (4 children)

“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize … I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump’s message to Jonas Gahr Støre said. “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”

The Norwegian government has no control over how the Nobel Committee awards its prizes. Greenland is a territory of Denmark, not Norway.

I don’t understand how this is “normal.”

Like, I can bring this up to Trump-liking family, genuinely smart people, and it’s just brushed off.

If Biden so much as stuttered in a speech, it was like a national emergency. What do you think would happen if he started mixing up EU countries and impulse texting them over “your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize?”

Congress would impeach any other president on the spot. Democrat or Republican.

Even accounting for Fox News, I just don’t understand how this gets a pass.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 37 points 22 hours ago

Cognitive bias affects all classes and education levels. But in my experience conservatives are the most flagrant, "the only moral abortion is my abortion" for example.

[–] N0t_5ure@lemmy.world 34 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (4 children)

Are you familiar with the concept of limerence? It's an intense infatuation with a person typically rooted in romantic interest. It occurs when you don't really know a person, and you build an idealized version of them in your mind that likely doesn't reflect reality. You attribute all sorts of positive traits to them and overlook all their negative traits. You effectively view them through "rose colored glasses". This is how Trump's followers look at him. They have this delusional view of him as this strong man here to save them from the mean old leftists. His efforts to seize and wield extraordinary power is viewed favorably, because he is their savior. Everything he does is either awesome or it's just minimized and ignored. When he does horrible things, it's just haters looking to knock him down, because he's just giving the U.S. the tough medicine it needs. There is no way to reason with them, because you can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into in the first place. It's an emotional thing, in the same way you might be smitten by an attractive woman and build her up in your mind into something that she isn't. The only way to break the spell is when your fantasy runs into cold, hard reality. In this case, the cold, hard reality will be financial collapse of the U.S. (or worse).

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 1 points 8 hours ago

You effectively view them through "rose colored glasses"

They must be seeing him through orange colored glasses, effectively normalizing his appearance. . . But who knows what they're smoking to ignore all their other senses!

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 16 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

you can’t reason someone out of something they didn’t reason themselves into

This is the crux. None of it is reasoned.

[–] AliasAKA@lemmy.world 13 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Yep. This is why you have to code your language to things that are emotionally evocative to them. To some Christians, it’s using the world evil (“this action is evil”). To others it’s using the word weak (“this makes him look really weak”).

Edit: and to be clear, it doesn’t actually need to be logical. You can say something like “his makeup makes him look weak” or “I heard that he sings in a falsetto, that’s super weird”. It doesn’t matter (by definition, it doesn’t need to be logical). What matters is repeatedly associating a negative stimulus with the target position you’re trying to dislodge (or positive stimulus for a position you want held, but humans in America and maybe generally tend to be very profoundly negative averse). The reason these people are hear is because this association game has been played very long and very hard. It is the basis of propaganda.

[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 6 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

People do this with fictional characters too. TVtropes calls it "Draco in Leather Pants". People find an evil character attractive and so paint a picture of that character in their head that is nothing like they are in canon, exaggerating any good thing about them (or just making up good things about them) and ignoring or justifying anything bad about them

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 points 8 hours ago

sounds like parasocial behaviour

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 0 points 8 hours ago

Huh, this is kinda like the creepy phenomenon where (usually) chicks with an unhealthy true-crime obsession start crushing over (often deceased) serial killers. . .

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago

Or what I did with my ex wife. It's some powerful shit

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 21 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

By what metric are those people "genuinely smart?"

[–] Peanutbjelly@sopuli.xyz 8 points 22 hours ago

Script theory does a good job of showing how being able to follow certain social scripts does not suggest that the person does not hold a strong delusion that is unchallenged by those scripts.

You can believe you can fly while not needing to contest that until it becomes an active choice you are forced to make. Some might back off from the belief when put to contest, because they are okay believing whatever feels good despite the dissonance they feel. Some might take action believing they can fly. Both exist comfortable in a shared social group of online "flying truthers."

People are easily deluded, and usually those delusions cover vaguely bounded and varying social groups, where a single person and an LLM can confirm the person into a noticeable delusion that hasn't been socialized into the surrounding social scripts.

This is also how you can get a genuinely smart person in math or something, which also holds confident deluded beliefs on some other context.

On the whole: Eco-niche specialization, misplaced confidence, and social affirmation, generally can lead to this.

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 14 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

It's because nothing Trump is doing scares them as much as:

  • Whites becoming a minority
  • Gender not being a fundamental way of organizing society
  • Random made up things they heard online that they believe to be true

Trump doesn't look so bad if you believe every US city was burned to the ground 6 years ago and had to be rebuilt using taxes from rural america which were collected by black & latino paramilitary troops controlled by the jews.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 points 39 minutes ago

•Whites becoming a minority
•Gender not being a fundamental way of organizing society

These two points can be simplified down to "their hierarchies being disrupted."
People who have gotten so used to living with privilege that equality feels like oppression. They believe that to give others a bigger piece of the "treat people well" pie their piece needs to become smaller. They don't understand that you can just make the pie bigger.