How do we cure Trumpism?

As I've said before, the problem isn't Trump; he's one man. The problem is Trumpers and Trumpism.

Five years ago, no one would have thought that more than maybe ten people would vote for a huckster, a fraud, a liar, a cheat, a thief, and a rapist. Also, who would expect that a person with NO political experience, one who had never held office before, would be elected President?

Nevertheless, tens of millions of adoring idiots voted for Trump. And therein lies the problem. When we get rid of Trump in November, all those people will still be around. And whatever dark qualities of their souls made them vote for Trump will still remain. Race hatred, nationalism, screw-the-poor, and conservative evil will persist. How do we get rid of it? How do we stop something like Trump from ever happening again?

I honestly don't know how we'll be able to do that. Germany bleached Naziism out of the citizenry by pretty much making it illegal. Socially, it became unacceptable to even talk about Hitler and the war. But I don't think we can get that drastic. Yes, we can shame Trumpers into silence in many cases. But their mental and emotional defects--the horrible ideas that fester in their dark souls--will remain.

Do we just live with it and hope that some portion of them return to their senses and become decent people again? Or do we do something more active, and make Trumpism socially unacceptable, the way we're trying to make racism unacceptable? If we don't manage to do this, our country is doomed, as there are tens of millions of evil Trumpers who could easily seize power again after the forces of decency and good retake the government in November. We have to make conservatism impossible on a molecular level to be safe.

Of course, simply letting all the nasty old white men die off would probably work eventually, but that would take decades.

Hillary Clinton:

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?

The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

Poor old DonDiego clearly had no choice.  He feels lifted up to this day; . . . or it could be a touch of gas.

So true with some here...

I know Hillary was excoriated for saying that. However, it's absolutely true. Trump "legitimized" race hatred and bigotry. A LOT of the people who voted for him did so for that sole reason. Hillary was right. Most of Trump's supporters are "deplorable." I really do want to know how we deal with them going forward.

For the record, I don't consider DonDiego to be one of the deplorables. I am willing to excuse his Trump support because it seems to have been largely due to Hillary-hatred rather than Trump-love.

DonDiego can still redeem himself in November.

To answer the question posed, fix social media.

Their algorithms are designed to suck you down the rabbit hole.  For example, If you like a conservative news article from a reputable conservative news source, the Facebook algorithm starts showing you Q stuff, pizza gate stuff, articles from Russian propagandists and so on.  In short, you get shown progressively inflammatory material designed to provoke a reaction from you.  The social media companies call the process enhancing user "engagement".  In a matter of a few months, you will become a David Miller only believing what you see on social media that caters to the worst elements of your personality.

Maybe to get their attention the village idiot or one or more of his family members could get the virus and die.Hopefully that would wake up the rest of his supporters.

So you posit that Trumpers (or most of them, anyway) are basically decent and rational people whose brains have been turned to mush by social media-based propaganda designed to turn them into asshole extremists?

Certainly, that's plausible--but given the obscenely massive profits that Facebook, Twitter, etc. etc. reap from this disinformation flood, how can we stop it? Our gummint so far has been flaccid in its response to social media's harmful aspects, and of course, the issue of First Amendment rights (FREEDUMB!) always comes up. I guess it comes down to whether smearing Joe Biden's son or saying that Hillary is an agent of the Deep State is the equivalent of shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater.

I would argue that troll-bot propaganda turned out to be so horribly harmful to the US--it brought us Trump and the rise of alt-nasty conservatism--that it shouldn't be protected by the First Amendment. What do you think?

I am not so sure I'd call most of them decent. Most of them lack the ability to distinguish fact from fiction because they are poorly educated or mentally infirmed in some way. Facebook and other social media by design highlight the most inflammatory information to these folks because it generates the most user engagement.  I suspect something like video clips from Trump's disastrous interview with Chris Wallace wouldn't be seen by most conservatives on Facebook because it would result in low engagement. 

On the other hand, a four-year-old crime passed off as something that just happened and demanding justice even though the perps are all already serving life sentences would get shown over and over again because it panders to conservative white grievance.

You can pass laws regulating how these algorithms work and enact stronger privacy laws so social media can't exploit people's political beliefs for profit. It isn't a first amendment issue because social media companies aren't government-owned platforms.

Ref:  Kevin Lewis' post of  9:01am

Kevin Lewis inquires: "who would expect that a person with NO political experience, one who had never held office before, would be elected President?" 

It turns out this is not as remote a possibility as one might think.  Five prior Presidents had held no political office before assuming the Presidency:

1. Zachary Taylor

2. Herbert Hoover

3. William Howard Taft

4. Ulysses S. Grant

5. Dwight D. Eisenhower

Hoover served as Secretary of Commerce under Coolidge.

Taft's prior accomplishments included being solicitor general, governor of the Phillipines, and Secretary of War, the last under Roosevelt.

Those would seem to meet the criterion of "having held office."

Taylor, Grant, and Eisenhower were generals who had played major roles in wars the US won. So, no political office, but certainly, major leadership positions.

Contrast that with the "military record" of the Bone Spur Coward. Trump had NO expertise or experience in leadership when he was elected, unless you want to count the ability to run dozens of companies into the ground and losing more money than any individual in US history.