Politics has to be the only line of work where people find out exactly how horrible someone is and still decide it’s a good idea to hire him. “A danger to everyone around him” becomes “a strong candidate” if he promises cheaper groceries.
I’m not a father yet, but I have nieces and nephews, and I’m pretty sure “must not be a complete menace” is a reasonable starting point for childcare. Say I’m looking for someone to watch them for the weekend, and one of the people I interview turns out to be a convicted felon with 34 felony counts. He was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women by the pussy. He tells me with a straight face that if I hire him, he’s going to let the rioters out of prison. I asked whether he could watch the kids, and he’s bringing his own felony playgroup. When he worked for me the last time, he called Haiti and African nations shithole countries, then denied saying it. That man doesn’t get a second interview. I’m shutting the door in his face, right after I kick him in the ass on his way off my porch. Consider it assistance with his transition to the private sector.
In American politics, he got the job twice. Then, in December 2025, he bragged about saying it at a rally in Pennsylvania. The first time, he denied the racism. The second time, he expected applause. That’s what passes for professional development.
A lot of these MAGA dumbasses believed every piece of nonsense he promised, including results he had no power to guarantee. Lower prices on Day One? He stood in front of a table stacked with groceries in August 2024 and said, “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.” Apparently, standing next to a box of cereal makes you an economist now. Presidents can influence prices through policy, but they cannot order supply, demand and global markets to put everything on clearance. The Federal Reserve sets its benchmark interest rate; it is not another button Trump can mash between television appearances. The big lever he reached for was tariffs, which add costs to imported goods. Yes, his plan to make your shopping cheaper involved making merchandise more expensive before it reached the store. Food prices kept rising, and ground beef jumped 15.5 percent in 2025. Day One came and went, and so did Day 365. Try taking his campaign promises to the checkout counter and see how much hamburger they buy you.
But the evil shit he said he would do, the stuff presidential power actually gives him the means to pursue, they somehow didn’t hear. Mass deportations. Giving Benjamin Netanyahu a green light to “do what you have to do” in Gaza after telling the world Israel needed to finish what it started. They waved away the authoritarian threats, then watched him send an initial 2,000 federalized National Guard troops to Los Angeles over the governor’s objection. The cheaper groceries were a solemn commitment. The mass deportations needed a translator, three lawyers and a congressional hearing to determine what he could possibly have meant. He said it out loud, and when he started delivering, they had the audacity to be surprised. Ten years of “he tells it like it is,” followed by “surely he didn’t mean that.”
These MAGA morons aren’t worth a full psychological analysis; “ignored the fucking warning label” would cover most of the case file. But I’m a professor, so I’ll donate a little expertise to people who usually prefer theirs from a man yelling in his truck. The concept is selective perception: people interpret messages through their existing preferences, absorbing what they want to hear and filtering out what might spoil it. In high school, a girl I liked told me she’d go out with me, but only if I could get my mom’s car for the weekend. I couldn’t get the car. She went out with a guy who had one. And I got mad, as if she had violated an agreement, because somewhere between her mouth and my ears, “only if” had disappeared. She was explaining a transportation requirement; I was already budgeting for popcorn and a possible makeout session. My teenage brain had approved the date and shredded the terms and conditions. She told me the terms. I heard “yes.” That’s the MAGA voter experience, except I was sixteen and the stakes were a movie, some popcorn and possibly getting kissed, not my neighbor’s husband getting thrown in a van.
Mario Guerrero runs the South Texas Builders Association, and by his own account he voted for Trump every time he was on the ballot. Then ICE started raiding construction sites across the Rio Grande Valley, and stopped showing up because they were scared, documented or not. Back in February, he was still telling reporters he didn’t regret his vote and that he’d backed Trump because he promised to go after the worst of the worst. Not long after, he went to Washington and warned lawmakers that South Texas will never be red again. By March, he was telling the New York Times, “We just never thought that this would come and affect us.” Mass deportations in a region whose construction industry relies on immigrant labor. Who could possibly have connected those two things, other than anybody who stayed awake through the sentence?
The best moment came on PBS NewsHour last month. The correspondent played Trump promising the largest deportation program in American history “to get the criminals out,” then asked Guerrero whether, knowing Trump campaigned on mass deportations, he was still surprised. His answer: “Yes, ma’am, very surprised.” What’s wrong with your ears, man? They played the promise back to you. This wasn’t a listening exercise where the teacher asks you to identify a hidden theme. “Largest deportation program in American history” was right there in the sentence.
