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One of the most disheartening things about the GOP cult is the willingness of Republicans to believe just about anything Donald Trump says, which does not bode well for what will happen if he loses again in November.
His supporters are willing (and even seem eager) to switch off their brains, suspend disbelief, and embrace any lie or conspiracy theory that comes out of Trump’s mouth.
This sad reality was painfully demonstrated in a new poll that quizzed Americans about some of the most outrageous lies the former president told during this week’s presidential debate.
For example, the YouGov poll conducted after the duel between him and Vice President Kamala Harris showed that 70 percent of likely Trump voters believe that “millions of illegal immigrants enter the US each month.”
Just some basic math shows that this cannot possibly be true. “Millions” would indicate that, at the very minimum, two million undocumented migrants enter the US every month (and that’s being generous because “millions” could also indicate three million or more).
That means at least 24 million people per year and 100 million during President Joe Biden’s turn.
In other words, if this were even remotely true, immigration would have caused the US population to balloon by more than 25 percent since 2021.
That defies all logic.
Republicans themselves point to Springfield, Ohio, which had a population of 58,000 before about 15,000 Haitian immigrants moved there, as an extreme example of a city being impacted by migration.
If Trump’s statement were true, this would happen (on average) in every single city and community in the US.
Republican voters also believe the former president when he says that Democrats want migrants to enter the US so that they will vote.
That’s a bit of a vague statement since, ultimately, naturalized citizens would be able to vote. However, there is no evidence that Democrats want immigrants to do so before going through this lengthy process.
Still, a whopping 90 percent of Trump voters believe this to be true.
Next up is something that can be checked with a Google search. It would take five seconds. But why educate oneself when believing Trump’s lies is so much easier?
Specifically, this is about the rate of inflation, which is currently at 2.5 percent. That is down significantly from 2021 and 2022, when it reached 9.1 percent.
Even at its peak, that was far below historic highs.
For example, in 1917, the rate topped out at above 20 percent. More recently, under (former) Republican hero Ronald Reagan, it dropped from 13.5 percent in 1980 to 4.1 percent in 1988 – both figures are higher than the comparative values under Biden.
However, that did not stop Trump from claiming that the current inflation rate is the highest ever. And it certainly didn’t stop 70 percent of his voters from believing that this easily disprovable falsehood is true.
It continues like this from one false statement after another.
More than three-quarters of Trump voters think that US aid to Ukraine eclipses that of all of Europe. More than 80 percent of them think that Venezuela is deliberately sending people from prisons and mental institutions to the US.
Nearly two-thirds of supporters of the former president believe his erroneous statement that crime has fallen across the globe but is peaking in US cities.
Large numbers of Republicans also believe even the most outrageous lies.
For example, 43 percent of them think that there are states in which it is legal to kill a baby after birth, which is mind-boggling. And more than half believe that it is true that Haitian immigrants are abducting and eating pets.
By comparison, a “mere” 28 percent agree that public schools are providing students with sex-change operations.
Finally, it almost seems shocking that Trump voters are largely unwilling to get behind their hero’s quest against windmills.
“Only” 10 percent think that the noise from wind turbines causes cancer.
Of course, the real cancer revealed in this poll is the willingness of Trump supporters to believe just about any lie without questioning it.
