Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn explicitly promoted feelings over reason last month at an event insisting Trump would somehow serve a second term. Don’t think, he advised, just feel. “It’s in our hearts where we truly know what is right. It’s in our hearts where we differentiate good and bad,” Flynn said. “It’s your heart talking to you, not your mind, because your mind is going to say, ‘I’m afraid.'”
In an interview with Trumpist youth activist Charlie Kirk, evangelical radio host Eric Metaxas — after clarifying that both men “firmly believe that Trump actually won” — argued they should “just stop” discussing how, specifically, Trump could still win. “My attitude is, like, so who cares what I can prove in the courts? This is right. This happened,” he continued. Kirk nodded vigorously. Later in the interview, Metaxas declared himself “thrilled to be too ignorant of the details” of the Trump team’s court cases to analyze them. Kirk grinned.
This blatant elevation of feelings as the ultimate authority has been widely in evidence on the Trumpy right even as deadline after deadline has passed and court after court has ruled against the president’s groundless contestations. And why not? These developments don’t matter if they don’t change how you feel.
