Donald Trump faces four indictments, 91 criminal charges and hundreds of years of maximum prison time combined.
This is a former president who — according to the latest grand jury indictment in Fulton County, Georgia — participated in a “criminal enterprise.” Trump and 18 co-defendants are accused of trying “to unlawfully change the outcome of the election” in 2020. Among the 13 felony charges he faces is one count of violating the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act and two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery.
Most of those charges are related to a fake elector scheme by the Trump campaign in which a slate of “alternate” electors in Georgia would cast electoral votes for Trump instead of Joe Biden. The president of the most powerful democracy in the world allegedly tried to steal an election.
We can’t say it often enough: This is serious. Americans cannot shrug this off or normalize it, no matter how many times Trump gets indicted. Yet it feels like business as usual. Not only is Trump favored to win the GOP presidential nomination, he’s also neck and neck with President Biden in the 2024 general election, according to a July poll by the New York Times/Siena Poll.
MORE THAN A CULT
Trump’s support cannot only be explained as the product of the cult-like power he has over his MAGA base, which accounts for roughly 40% of Republican voters who believe those indictments are nothing but a conspiracy against him.
more: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article278265068.html
Personally I think the issue is more that there is blind loyalty to team sports in USA culture, and no matter how many bad things are documented about a specific person (Donald Trump, Richard Nixon)… people are loyal to the image of that person, the brand and logo. People are raised in the USA to be inundated with breakfast cereal and toy company logo/brand recognition. It’s a faith system. Breakfast cereals and fast-food “Happy plates” that fund a lot of children’s TV are incredibly unhealthy and profit machines - and parents think this is psychologically healthy.
Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be. -Marshall McLuhan
Don’t forget religion