Conservative writer details how evidence can't penetrate the delusional ‘Trumpian bubble’

Although President Donald Trump has never had really high approval ratings, those who support him are not generally lukewarm toward the president; they are intensely devoted. Conservative Never Trump journalist Charlie Sykes examines the intense devotion of Trump’s MAGA base in a February 11 article for The Bulwark, citing two e-mails he read as examples of how difficult it is to sway anyone who lives in the “Trumpian bubble.”

New revelations of Trump “fleecing of taxpayers by charging the Secret Service exorbitant rates,” Sykes laments, won’t matter to MAGA voters “just like the evidence about Trump’s meddling in Ukraine didn’t matter, or last week’s dual meltdowns at the Prayer Breakfast and in the East Room didn’t matter. You think the new budget and deficit numbers will move the needle? Or the fallout from the trade war? Or the 15,000-plus false statements he’s made since taking office? The probability of any of this mattering to Trump’s base ranges from ‘impossible’ to ‘no effing way.’”

Trump, Sykes explains, benefits from an “alternative-reality bubble that has effectively isolated many of his supporters from inconvenient information.” And Sykes goes on to explain why “two e-mails I received this week highlight the challenges of breaking through the Trumpian bubble.”

The first e-mail, according to Sykes, came from a Bulwark reader in New Berlin, Wisconsin. The reader asserted that when talking to Trump devotees in his area, it was evident how much they cut themselves off from any anti-Trump information.

The reader told Sykes that during a recent conversation with them, “It was difficult to challenge their points or even have any informed discussions with them, because whatever I mentioned, they had no knowledge of it occurring. Very much short on facts. Had all of the repeated Trumpisms — witch hunt, hoax, etc. — down pat. But if you try to drill down a little deeper, you couldn’t hit home.”

After Sykes included that e-mail in his newsletter, he notes, another Bulwark reader — a woman in Seattle — saw it and reported having very similar experiences with Trump voters. She wrote, “Facebook has created an impermeable barrier so that people are NOT seeing anything that is different from what their tribe wants to believe. The worst part about it is that people think they are getting the news instantly — they have the illusion that they are instantly aware of what is going on, but the reality is a highly deceptive, manipulated, and curated dribble of propaganda.”

That reader specifically discussed someone Sykes describes as “Roger” (not the person’s real name). “Roger,” the reader lamented, “thinks Trump has saved the taxpayers money.”

Sykes concludes his article on a depressing note, writing, “And now, we all live in Roger’s world."