Trump and the art of projection

Trump and his supporters display a psychological phenomenon when they make their non-sensical accusations

Michael Greiner
5 min readAug 21, 2020
Photo by James Barr on Unsplash

Trump supporters are once again jumping directly upon the bandwagon of their hero, accusing the Democrats of plotting to steal the election through wholesale voter fraud accomplished by voting by mail. Facts don’t seem to matter in their arguments. Never mind that all the research, including that conducted by the Republican former Secretary of State Kris Kobach has been unable to find any evidence of voter fraud. Never mind that Trump, his family, and many of his cabinet officials vote by mail. Never mind that Trump argued for people to vote by mail in Florida, but not elsewhere. But as we have seen repeatedly with Trump and his supporters, facts don’t matter.

The argument advanced most recently by Trump and his supporters to resolve this example of cognitive dissonance is that absentee voting is OK, but not voting by mail. Never mind that in most cases, including in Florida, the two are exactly the same thing. But again, facts don’t matter. Despite the complete absence of any factual basis for their arguments, Trump and his supporters will argue the point passionately.

What really irks many Democratic activists such as myself, is that in the few occasions when…

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Michael Greiner

Mike is an Assistant Professor of Management for Legal and Ethical Studies at Oakland U. Mike combines his scholarship with practical experience in politics.