David Pakman

He was accounting for the Mayan calendar with the wrong offset.

And it turns out that the date is actually different.

We've heard it.

We've heard it before.

And so where you end up is with that kind of cult like framework.

And then you add to that the claim from Trump's some Trump supporters that Trump's not really in control, that there are other forces operating behind the scenes.

Now, we're going to deal with who those forces may be later in the show.

But think about the contradiction that that creates.

Normally, that should break confidence.

If Trump is really in charge, he's responsible if he's not in charge.

Why would you support someone who's not really in charge?

But instead of causing people to go, wait, that doesn't make sense.

Why do I support this guy?

It ends up reinforcing the cult leader because it gives the supporters a way to protect their image of Trump.

while explaining away anything that doesn't make sense.

He gets the good outcomes and the bad outcomes end up being blamed on somebody else.

Could be Joe Biden, could be Barack Obama, could be someone else within his administration that stymied him or turned against him or was low IQ.

This is none of this is new.

Like it's new in the sense of seeing it in an American president.

But this is classic authoritarian dynamics.