Con artists are a special breed of predator. Not only do they traffic in humanity’s most basic passions—their hopes, fears and expectations—but they rely on the singular human emotions of self-respect and self-worth in order to protect themselves from blowback if their con is discovered. The most painful thing for any person to admit is that they were snookered, led down the merry garden path by a huckster, or simply “ripped off.” Most people are so intrinsically prideful that they will bend over backward with rationalizations to avoid admitting this.
The Trump phenomenon is a stark illustration of what can happen when you combine the talents of an accomplished con man with polarized political loyalties. Donald Trump’s prior business endeavors—his bankrupt hotels, his phony “university,” his feigned mettle as a supposedly talented businessman—are all evidence of his ability to bluff and cheat people to enrich himself at their expense, by hyping his nonsensical products with an insouciant, relentless bluster. That has been Trump’s MO from the beginning of his career, and it continues to this day.
But conning the populace on a mass scale in politics? That relies on those being conned—the “marks”—staying in line to support the con. And there is no stronger bond or motivator in politics than the perception of being persecuted—or worse, being threatened with expulsion from your tribe. This is why Republicans pay such fealty to Trump’s Big Lie that the election was somehow “stolen” from him, despite all rational evidence to the contrary. To admit the evidence in front of them demands a contrary conclusion is effectively the same as admitting that their faith in Trump was misplaced or wrong.
That is a personal indictment of their own intelligence and self-worth, as well as an indictment of the people in whom they most commonly put their faith (usually friends and family); for that reason, their errors can never be acknowledged. The fact that those who presume to challenge their self-worth are their political opponents makes such an acknowledgment doubly impossible under any circumstances.