If you have 5 minutes, this is a really good read.
"“It’s hard for political junkies to believe,” Lenz said, “but most people have much better things to do with their lives than pay attention to politics. If you ask, ‘How, after the last four years, could people want more of this?’, well, people are partisan. The country is polarized. And it’s not clear that people are paying much attention to the details.”
Despite reams of journalism exploring the impact of Fox News and the right-wing media ecosystem, Lenz said, relatively few people actually tune in. In fact, people often don’t understand politics or policy well at all."
"“People make large, systematic errors when judging party composition,” Ahler wrote with co-author Gaurav Sood, an independent social scientist. “For instance, Americans believe that 32% of Democrats are gay, lesbian or bisexual (only 6.3% are, in reality), and that 38% of Republicans earn over $250,000 per year (just 2.2% do, in reality).”
Further, they wrote, Republicans substantially overestimate the proportion of Democrats who are Black people, or atheists; Democrats significantly overestimate the number of Republicans who are over 65. Such basic misconceptions can amplify Democrat-Republican tensions, driving politics that may be guided more by dislike of the other team than reasoned evaluation of issues."
"One recent poll found that 56% of Republicans now believe that the improbable QAnon conspiracies are somewhat or entirely true. Only 4% of Democrats agree."
Now pay close attention Gary/Igy/Sally:
"In Chatman’s view, Trump is a narcissist — his actions are principally devoted to advancing his own popularity and power. And psychological processes called “habituation” and “escalation of commitment” bind the followers to their leader, she said, giving Trumpism itself some qualities of a cult.
“A person’s immense loyalty to a cult is a result of small escalations of personal commitment,” Chatman explained. People begin to identify with the group and feel accountable to its members and especially to the leader. They fear that defection would let others down, or that they could be rejected by this group with which their identity has become deeply connected. So, when Trump doesn’t release his taxes, or has a dalliance with a porn star, or abuses his power, his allies develop a supportive rationale and remain ardently loyal.
“Every time a person stays after one of those infractions, it’s harder for them to pull out the next time,” she said. “They have an increasing set of commitments, and if they pulled out, they’d have to say to themselves, ‘Was I stupid before? Was I blind?’
“It’s much easier and more cognitively consistent to stay in and say, ’Oh, the media, the Democrats, they’re not giving him a fair shot.’ …. That’s why we don’t see any movement in the Trump base.”"
https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/12/07/despite-drift-toward-authoritarianism-trump-voters-stay-loyal-why/