Millions have amnesia about the worst of Trump's presidency. Memory experts explain why.
How Trump is benefiting from the limits of our memory.
The most sinister part of the chaos that Trump brews, honestly, is the deep apathy and antipathy towards politics that seems pervasive in society. Everyone was already tired by capitalism, but post-COVID the grind and the demand has spun ever higher while Trump keeps orchestrating chaos from, well, not even the fucking shadows but more like the toilet at Mar-a-Lago.
It breaks a lot of people, and its fair, they're just scraping by, worrying about their own. They have their own serious problems, medical issues, sorrow, loss, you name it, people are suffering. It's validly hard for anyone to find the time for it and they become disconnected and disoriented.
It's fucking maddening that it works. It feels like humanity never actually left the dark ages.
Anyway, quality Mother Jones article, good breakdown on why a lot of people's memory of the past seems to forget the worst excesses. Explains a lot about the Bush administration, too, really.
I remember reading something like that years ago ... that there are some historians who think that we haven't left the dark ages yet. In everything else with technology and information we've progressed but we still think and act the same way we have for the past 2000 years.
And the more I read about the subject over the years the more I realized that as human animals, our modern species have only been around for about 50,000 years. In all that time, we've only ever been fearful, short sighted, frightened creatures that wanted everything as quickly and as much as possible all the time. We couldn't do it before but now we can.
In that 50,000 year timeline we're only on the very tip of history ... it's going to take us millennia to change.
Just to clarify, 50,000 years is 50 millennia. If you meant millions if years, the term for that is mega-anna. And eons for billions.
Other than that, I more or less agree. Humans have developed technologically much faster than we've been able to evolve/adapt to the changes we're creating, and the stress from that is growing. Occasionally I wonder if it'll prove too much for us in the end.
I wish I had amnesia about it.
This is such a condescending form of analysis that totally misses the mark. It's basically just, "Trump was bad, but some people still like him. Why? Must be because they're just too dumb to remember things." There's no actual evidence that people have forgotten any of the stuff they mention, it's purely just that.
To attribute the issue to memory would imply that there was widespread agreement while he was in office that he was bad, which has faded over time. But Trump's approval rating for most of his time in office hovered around 40%, similar to Biden's. So what's actually happening is not that people were on the same page about Trump being bad when the events of his presidency were fresh in their minds, but rather, that his supporters never agreed with/cared about the things the article is saying in the first place. Framing it around memory is nonsense.
One of the biggest things I remember about his presidency was the fucking embarrassment. Other countries were mocking us and for good reason.
I recently rewatched the video of the UN assembly laughing to his face. Insanity that he's still respected as any kind of statesman
He isn’t. He’s just got people who vote for him anyways
That's not unusual for Americans, though. Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon... Americans have been putting up turds to the Oval Office since President Kennedy's term abruptly ended.
That’s not unusual for Americans, though. Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon
All of those guys were way more respected than Trump. And of the rest, all of the others not Bush jr were way more respected than Bush jr.
The current period IS very unusual for how badly our reputation has fallen. Although you could also say America's reputation around the world was unusually high from 1945-2000.
Anyone looking for a reminder can check out Robert Reich's video he just put out
Well, that was a trip down memory lane.
Please pull over I don’t want to go down this lane anymore
A great video but he forgot leaving the Kurds high and dry and dealing with then releasing thousands of Taliban in Afghanistan.
bro, I'm trying to figure out what cocktail- other than the right-aide- causes this amnesia.
Many people are kind of stupid. Not ignorant. But like, incapable or unwilling to evaluate what's a good source and what's nonsense. Also incapable of drawing plausible conclusions even when given good sources. It's all emotional. It's how you can have stuff like "the outgroup have all the money and power, but they're also poor and taking all our welfare" at the same time. Feels truthy. Anti-vaxxers get the high of bonding with their anti-vax friends and feeling like they're part of the in-group.
There's not really an answer. Invest in public education for 100 years, maybe. But we're going always going to have authoritarians shitting life up for everyone.
Recency bias. Peak-end rule. Low media literacy. Take your pick.
Waking up everyday wondering what batshit crazy thing he had either just said or was going to say that day. It was exhausting. And then the pandemic hit and he was suggesting the most batshit crazy things about that. And then he somehow was able to politicize the most common sense things we could do. It was absolutely the most stressed I’ve ever been for that extended period of time.
I rarely completely disagree with people and I’m pretty good at empathizing and putting myself in their shoes. I may not agree with them but I can see where they’re coming from and can see some good in them. That is to say I usually don’t hate people. I hate this man. I will be glad when he’s not around to spread the chaos and just outright stupidity he spouts and surrounds himself with. This planet will be better off without him in it.
Waking up everyday wondering what batshit crazy thing he had either just said or was going to say that day. It was exhausting.
For you? Yeah it was exhausting, you poor piece of shit. For the media? It was the best goddamn four years of their lives. Every morning the people would rush to see what insane shit he did that day and the news media farmed the FUCK outta them clicks.
Not that the CBS executive chairman and CEO might vote for the Republican presidential frontrunner, but he likes the ad money Trump and his competitors are bringing to the network.
“It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” he said of the presidential race.
Moonves called the campaign for president a “circus” full of “bomb throwing,” and he hopes it continues.
“Most of the ads are not about issues. They’re sort of like the debates,” he said.
“Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? … The money’s rolling in and this is fun,” he said.
They desperately want to drag us back
I recently got back from visiting my in-laws in rural Appalachia. All the bad things that happened during the Trump presidency happened under Biden to them.
I remember seeing that with Clinton, post Bush sr. All the bad stuff done by Reagan & Bush was blamed on Clinton as he worked to clean up their messes.
Again, with Obama after Bush.
Traditional American politics.
Heck, between the media, The Donald on Reddit and the whole pandemic, people were rightfully getting burned out on everything. I don’t really have any active memories between march 2020 and early 2023. That whole time period feels like a big blur. And that’s just me as a European. I can imagine it’s way worse for people in the US…
Someone needs to compile a list of all the heinous shit this idiot has done. Make it a website or something.
This site existed from the beginning
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/columns/reasons-why-donald-trump-is-unfit-to-be-president
Holy fuck it's extensive. Surely one for the history textbooks
I just assumed that they forget the horrid shit because of some twisted confirmation bias.
Everyone keeps pointing it out, and they keep telling themselves about the "good" things he's done. Reinforcing their own confirmation bias.
I first heard about this phenomenon in "how to win friends and influence people"... It's a book, crazy, right? It's about human nature, and how arguing with someone often results in them arguing for their point, further entrenching them in their opinion. While they don't convince you with their arguments, they convince themselves and that makes arguing with someone a difficult thing to do, and "win" at (by convincing the opposing person of your viewpoint).
The fact is, the more we argue with them about Trump, the more they have to argue for him being someone that's going to "make America great again", and the further they get entrenched into that viewpoint.
The sooner more people realize that this is a viscous cycle of mental violence and simply decide not to continue, the better. Obviously that's hard to do when you are faced with the very real possibility of him being reelected, and essentially bringing back the Nazi party with him....
Idk what's the right thing to do, but clearly, nobody is going to change the minds of the deranged "MAGA" crowd anytime soon.
I just assumed that they forget the horrid shit because of some twisted confirmation bias.
Personally I figured it was that so much bad shit happened so constantly that it got remembered as just one bad thing rather then one hundred bad things. Damn near every day Trump was doing something new and stupid.
and they keep telling themselves about the "good" things he's done.
Thing is that they view a lot of the shitty things he did as good.
So when I see someone pose that we’ve forgotten the bad stuff, I don’t think that’s the case for a lot of people. They view some portion of the bad as good.
Yeah, everything I’ve been hearing in the last couple of years has talked about how traditional fact checking methods do not sway beliefs. The few things I’ve heard work are innoculation and ridicule.
Inoculation (telling someone about conspiracies before they’re encountered) seems like it could be used in favor of whatever ideology, not just the truth.
And ridicule (couch sex memes and “weird”), seems to work because it specifically targets the “follow the strong man” approach that many fools take to belief building. Like that can’t be applicable generally, can it?
I am yet to learn of a solid framework + practical methods which work to guide people toward belief based in reality.
Perhaps it’s multi-faceted. First make them feel like part of a community, which grounds them in experience and removes the most insane conspiracies/fear, then they’ll be grounded enough to accept some media & scientific literacy education?
Is it just me, or I thought it's a general consensus long ago that voters have the memory of a goldfish? Why would forgetting the worst of the Trump presidency be any different? Even people have somehow rehabilitated George W. Bush in spite of deliberate lying by his administration, and dragging the United States into a needless conflict for 23 years that cost $1 trillion.
Even people have somehow rehabilitated George W. Bush in spite of deliberate lying by his administration, and dragging the United States into a needless conflict for 23 years that cost $1 trillion.
Each new GOP president is so much worse than the last guy was that we start thinking maybe the last guy wasn't as bad as we had remembered.