How Donald Trump broke the American mind

Trumpism’s real threat isn’t political chaos. It’s cognitive collapse

https://www.salon.com/2025/11/03/how-donald-trump-broke-the-american-mind/

“Trump’s politics depend on what psychologists call cognitive overload. He lies so relentlessly that even his detractors become mentally fatigued as the brain’s basic truth-tracking mechanisms begin to short-circuit. Research by psychologists Gordon Pennycook and David G. Rand shows that repeated exposure to falsehoods erodes the brain’s resistance: The more often we hear a claim — true or false — the more familiar, and thus believable, it feels. “