Waltz's team set up at least 20 Signal group chats for crises across the world

If people you respect are swayed, ask yourself (or better: them) what they see that you don't. I doubt it's a matter of intelligence, so much as perspective.

If no one you respect has been swayed, you should know: the other side is making the same baffled judgements about you.

The usual answer is some mix of, I like his policies, he tells it like it is, and the Democrats are worse.

Sounds good but makes little sense. He contradicts himself constantly. Anyone will find policies of his that they can agree with, because he covers the spectrum. You want strict gun control and universal government health care? He’s your guy. You’re a 2A absolutist and think health care should be totally unregulated? Trump is your man! Likewise with “tells it like it is.” I’m convinced that his popularity is mostly due to the fact that he just spews so much crap. If you manage to only hear the parts you like, you’ll think he’s great.

“The Democrats are worse” could be sensible, but it’s almost always based on a notion of Democrats that’s completely disconnected from reality.

Do you anticipate that someone is going to tell you, specifically, that they do not support rabid DEI, some of the highest tax rates in the world, widespread and severe drugs, poverty, and homelessness, endless war, vote dilution through importation of new voters, calling a random sample of political nemeses rapists and racists, and now, painting Swastikas on vehicles? Do you truly both believe that is disconnected from reality, and that someone would reveal this in a conversation with you?

If a political party ships innocent people off to concentration camps without due process and promises to take over allied nations by any means necessary — and someone supports that party despite, or even because of, those policies — then there is nothing left to see or to understand. You hate {DEI|taxation|government waste|woke culture} so much that you're willing to upend democracy and centuries-old alliances just to see it gone? OK. It's a matter of axiomatically incompatible worldviews at that point.

Moreover, cults of personality are shockingly common. Many people simply do not reason themselves into their political positions. Probe their beliefs beyond surface level and there's no consistency beyond "ingroup good, outgroup bad."

I’ve heard most of that. And yeah, it’s pretty disconnected from reality.

Rabid DEI? Mythical.

Highest tax rates in the world? No we don’t. And did you notice that this guy just enacted a massive tax hike? Voting Trump for lower taxes is idiotic.

Drugs, poverty, war? Trump has no effective plan to fight any of these.

Importation of new voters? Why do Republicans assume immigrants are automatic Democratic votes? Hispanic culture is pretty socially conservative. Those millions of people coming in over the southern border should be an easy demographic for the Republican Party to recruit.

Rapists and racists? When you support a rapist and racist to run the country, expect that to be criticized. And aren’t Republicans supposed to be all about “free speech”? But oh no, somebody called me names, it’s awful.

Genuinely, thanks for your response.

Or many of them are some combination of racists, care about gun rights over everything else, religious folks who think that protesting Isreal will result in the second coming of Christ, anti-choice, and something something woke.

When people sincerely believe that if the country gives gay people rights that it will cause the nation to burn in hell, there isn’t any convincing people.