Why Did So Many Americans Buy Into Trump’s lies?

How could a serial loan defaulter ever be a ‘good businessman?’

5 min readApr 4, 2021

Trump supporters (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

If I read another article about people who voted for ex-President Donald Trump because he was “a good businessman,” I’m going to scream. I just read another such report in The New York Times that claimed Trump scored more Latino voters than expected because of his z”business expertise.”

“In focus groups, Equis Labs’ interviewers noticed that Mr. Trump’s history as a businessman was seen as a positive attribute by many Latino voters, who viewed him as well positioned to guide the economy through the pandemic-driven recession. Partly as a result, the analysis found, many conservative Latino voters who had been hanging back at the start of the campaign came around to supporting him,” said The New York Times.

I’ve already explained how this line of thinking is woefully incorrect. This subject was also discussed in a Washington Post magazine article by Eric Garcia, who said his Mexican-American father voted for Trump.

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The Trump delusion

However, I’m sure it won’t be the last time we hear this. But this line of thinking is so far off the mark, I have to call it stupid. People who believe this must also think pro-wrestling is real and help prosperity-gospel preachers buy new jets.

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What’s the thought process? Trump is good for business, so I’m going to ignore the fact that he also led to a spike in hate crimes against my community?

But it’s evident that we live in a country where too many people are functionally illiterate. They can barely read and write and they definitely can’t process information. That’s the only explanation for people who voted for Trump and continue to believe the opposite of the truth.

How can you say Trump, a man who lives off loans, is a good businessman? Trump was so bad at defaulting on loans that American banks cut him off, which led him to Russia to look for financing.

Trump even managed to lose money in the gaming industry, a business where people line up and give you money! His Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City was so poorly run and overleveraged, Marvin Roffman, a gaming industry analyst, warned it would fail. Trump got him fired. However, Roffman was right. The casino eventually went under because it was drowning in red ink.

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Functionally illiterate voters

The truth about Trump’s multiple business failures is all there in black and white for Americans who bother to read. And it’s not difficult to find it if you do the research. Some of it is in video form, such as the Netflix series “Dirty Money” and the PBS documentary “The Choice.”

That’s also led thousands of Americans to believe in delusional BS such as QAnon. QAnon geniuses were so absorbed in a hunt for a mythical liberal pedophile ring they ignored real-life sex-offenders such as Trump associates Jeffery Epstein and the soon-to-be indicted Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)

And it also led Trump cultists to attack their own government. Sometimes terminal stupidity can be deadly. A recent story about a retired Utah police officer arrested for his role in the insurrection illustrates the danger of Cult 45.

“‘We stormed the Capitol, I am in here now!;’ ‘I know you don’t like [Donald] Trump, but He is the rightful President!;’ and ‘We will return until we win!’,” said Michael Lee Hardin, who served as a police officer for two decades. He believed he was fighting for the United States. Now he’s facing at least three federal charges.

Steve Hassan, author of “The Cult of Trump,” was right when he said Trump hypnotized his followers. Maybe one day they’ll wake up from the trance and realize they voted for a bankrupt, racist, conman who loathed the very people who voted for him.