I have a friend from my old graduate program who used to be very thoughtful and measured in his politics. He's very smart and does well in discussions with disagreeing parties. As with most educated conservatives, he wasn't too keen on Trump during the primaries or even after he won the nomination.
However, since Trump won the election, my friend has turned into a pro-Trump robot on social media, writing numerous nonsensical screeds about how great Trump and his "policies" are. His past writing was excellent (he used to be a writer for an international publication), but now it's full of weird fallacies and "facts" that can be debunked with 30 seconds of Googling. Recently, his posts have further devolved into sharing nonsensical memes, such as this gem. It's like his mind has been taken over by a Russian spam-bot.
What the fuck is going on here? I didn't think Trump's ridiculous cult of personality could draw in people like this. I'm literally watching my friend become dumber by the day. Have any of you seen this happen to your friends/loved ones? If so, have you been able to do anything about it? If not, let's brainstorm what we can do to pursue meaningful dialogue (i.e. avoid the Backfire Effect) to start winning some hearts and minds here.
ここには何もないようです