I wonder if others on the jury helped them see the light. Or maybe the nodding and smiling was sarcasm, or even intentionally trolling Trump. Fun to think about.
The thing is, you can sometimes get through to these Trump supporters if you can deprogram them from their echo-chamber… That requires very long conversations, an expose of facts, dismantling of their fallacies, and keeping them away from right-wing propaganda and peer pressure for an extended period of time.
… Which just so happens to be what jurors go through.
That’s a nice wholesome take. Reminds me of this man:
Six weeks is all it would take to undo years of brainwashing from every direction? I doubt it.
Well, education in general… Which is why they are so absolutely desperate to dismantle our education system.
Without Fox News and others, who will tell them what to think/say/do? They probably had their first unobstructed, own thoughts in years.
It could very well be a case of “Never meet your childhood heroes”. Trump probably acted like a spoiled brat and the juror saw it first hand.
I’ve had some progress with a local trumpet, but he has too many friends pulling him back for the effects to last long.
He snaps out of it when I point out how capitalism (billionaires) is often the problem, or how the Rs block immigration reform. He’s been able to see some truth now and then. But later he turns his TV on and it’s all Hunter Biden’s fault for him again. Also for some reason we’re all gonna eat bugs lately.
My understanding is that juries in America dont really deliberate on a verdict or a sentence. Thats up to the judge.
Instead, I believe they’re presented with all the facts and arguments, then determine based on that information whether or not the the prosecution’s claims hold up.
So its more of a “based on the facts you have been presented with, do you think the defendant did X”, rather than “should the defendant be punished for this crime?”
Most Trump supporters understand that he’s a criminal, but believe that his actions are in service of the greater good. So in a situation like this the distinction between “do the facts line up” and “should he be punished” is an important one.
That’s exactly the kind of thing a New Yorker would do. “Oh, yeah, sure, I’m on your side, buddy, we got so much in common.”
I seem to recall seeing an infographic (uncertain of its provenance) indicating that one juror listed the NY Post as a frequent news source. That guy’s presence on the jury certainly had me concerned.
There was one juror who got their news from Truth Social and Twitter so I am guessing they were not trolling.
Dollars to donuts, that guy got un-brainwashed during the trial & isn’t voting for Trump now.
Which is actually pretty hopeful. Once the dude got out of a media ecosystem telling him what to think and feel, and he was presented with the facts in an irrefutable way, he did what was right.
Right-wing media is all about creating an information bubble keeping inconvenient truths out.
“no one is the villain of their own story.”
I strongly believe that the majority of Trump supporters (maybe not the supremely rabid ones) truly believe that they’re doing the right thing based on the propaganda they’re exposed to.
I live in a rather red area of my state and while I definitely know racists and selfish assholes (this is NY so they’re everywhere) most of the Republicans i know are generally good people that are just submerged in a propaganda ecosystem. Hell one of my coworkers is absolutely a way better person than I am: volunteering and giving to charity, giving a lot of their time to others, but they’re also a die hard Republican.
If anyone checks my history I say this a thousand times: I FUCKING HATE PROPAGANDISTS they are a cancer on society…
Also forcing them to communicate with real people in real life makes a HUGE difference. Combine those two things and you have a potentially powerful force of deprogramming.
It’s almost like forcing the Germans to walk through the camps after they were liberated… Except hopefully before it gets to that point.
God if that’s all it takes… Stick each of these fuckers in a tiny room with 11 of their peers and FORCE them to listen to nothing but cold hard facts for hours a day, for weeks, and then discuss them in person until they can all unanimously agree on our collective reality…
Maybe it’s doable? God, I hate the idea of “re-education,” it has such an icky, authoritarian connotation. But it’s literally what these people need. Except in this case it isn’t about inundating them with propaganda, it’s literally just reality and irrefutable facts.
It’s all about group membership.
If the people on the jury started to see themselves as a coherent group, then they can change minds and reach consensus. People listen to other people in their in group way more.
If you try to talk to a maga person, and they see you as a Outsider, you’re going to have a very difficult time getting them to listen to anything you say.
We all do this to some extent.
It’s just really bad currently that the maga people will look to their group for consensus reality, and they have mostly bad ideas.
I don’t know how to dismantle that group.
I’m not even slightly surprised that Trump doesn’t know how jury trials work.
He’s most likely referring to Juror #2 who, iirc, is a man who follows Trump on Truth Social and also watches Fox ‘News’.
At this point, I would love again like to publicly apologize to Juror #2 for the aspersions I cast on his character during the trial. I’m sorry, dude; you looked at the evidence and went where it led you.
I mean, it could also be that he was more self-interested than principled and caved against his beliefs so he could go home.
Retracting previous aspersions is warranted because we don’t know which it was and should give him the benefit of the doubt… but we don’t know.
Brilliant move by the juror. Getting crushed is just that much worse when you have some hope.
(although I highly doubt this was a calculation by the juror and more Trump reading into something that was never there)
Surprise, motherfucker.
