eric a blair wrote:
good post. Probably the best the nation can hope for is that the hardcore trumpers lose interest and don't vote and dont' post on FB and don't watch Fox. When people are backed into a corner and shown that they have the facts wrong, all they do is dig in their heels and fight back harder. They dont' change their minds.
Although a counter argument to that is the fall in support for trump amond independents and the 'strongly support' people in the trump camp.
Conundrum wrote:That's an interesting question. I just read an article in Politico which stated that Trump's base sees this all as a witch hunt and a reflection of the fake media colluding with the democrats. Trump obviously hold much away over how they see things.
So what would make them change their mind? The human need to reduce cognitive dissonance is very powerful. I think when presented with dissonant information a number of strategies will be employed: attack the person presenting information (fake news), divert the discussion to another issue (Hillary) or simple denial. The next stage of dealing with dissonance is to accept as something bad but that everyone does it and it's normal. The last stage is not admitting that you were wrong but losing interest in the topic because it's all bad and not worth your time.
So my answer is basically nothing will convince them that they are wrong.
But we all use defenses to reduce dissonance. No one is immune from it. (But I still know they are wrong.)
I think it's important to think about the context of support for Trump though. Are you asking "what would it take for a Trump supporter to change their vote in 2020?" or "what would it take for a Trump supporter to be in favor of impeachment (or similar)?"
If there were an election between DJT and HRC today I would not be surprised to see Trump win again. Do you really think a Republican is going to change their vote to Hillary? Maybe some independents, but with the electoral college, that may not matter.
However, if it's a situation where Trump gets impeached and Pence would become president, I think Republicans as a whole are more likely to support that because it guarantees that a member of their party will still be in office.