I recently got into a war of words on Facebook with a friend from high school, who is now a very pro-Trump Twin Cities pastor. And I find myself, once again, wondering what I’ve missed in trying to decipher this strange dynamic existing between Trump and his followers.
For the sake of comparison, in terms of corruption and malfeasance, the one who usually comes to mind is Richard Nixon. Until Trump, he was the poster child for devious, power-hungry presidential shenanigans. Nixon was a brilliant man in some ways whose personal demons always seemed to get in the way of whatever common decency he possessed.
Yet even Nixon had a public persona that came across as reasonable and reassuring – a facade to be sure, but that was the public perception. Donald Trump, on the other hand, hides nothing. His multitude of flaws are front-and-center, for all to see. He makes very little attempt to hide who he is, or what he is, because he doesn’t think he has to. In his warped, deluded mind, he thinks it’s OK to be a misogynist and a narcissistic bully because that’s what makes him a real leader, a real man. He reaffirms this virtually every time he speaks, and it’s mind-boggling to me that there are still so many who can’t see this. It’s as though we’re looking at two different men.
The term that keeps coming to mind is “willful ignorance,” seeing and hearing what you want to see and hear, despite what your eyes and ears are telling you— like those who viewed the Jan. 6 riot and saw only peaceful “tourists,” as though they were viewing entirely different footage than everyone else.
But with his insistence on showing us his true self, no one can come back after the fact and say, “boy, he sure had me fooled.” No one will EVER have that luxury, not with Donald Trump. What you see is what you get, and if you fail to see the painful truth, then that’s on you. And, if he’s re-elected, unfortunately it’ll be on the rest of us as well. 
Lynn Scott
Soudan