When reality clashes with anchored beliefs

What will happen as the turmoil of this presidency confronts the MAGA faithful?

As our local point of embarkation makes clear, a label does not reality make. (Photo: stuckattheairport.com)

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We live up the road from Albany, a city that its boosters complain has long suffered from an inferiority complex so severe that some residents call it “Smallbany.” We know what that sort of pathology does to humans: People with an inferiority complex tend to avoid challenges and struggle to set goals; sometimes they overcompensate with attention-seeking behavior.

I’m not one of the region’s detractors, mind you. I’ve traveled in 49 states and lived all over the country — the Midwest, the West, the Southwest, the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast — and, all in all, I’d rather be here, in Upstate America. But if you want an example of what the region’s pathology does to us, consider the fact that our airport is called Albany International Airport despite the fact that — here’s where the overcompensation appears — the airport, in fact, has no international departures or arrivals.

The airport took on that elevated name a quarter-century ago, just as a new terminal opened, and I recall that there was for a short time a weekly flight from Albany to Toronto. But that schedule was scrapped not long after the ribbon-cutting, making the airport’s name as nonsensical as the notion that Toronto will soon be the largest city in our 51^st state.

Still, as a strategy among regional leaders to combat the Smallbany mentality, the airport’s name might be useful. That’s because of how the human brain is wired: We are programmed to give disproportionate weight to the first information we receive, data that we then use to make subsequent judgments. Psychologists sometimes call this the anchoring effect. Once an idea is embedded in our brains — like, say, that Albany is an international destination and a port to the world, as the airport’s name suggests — it’s awfully hard to get humans to accept new information, even when facts contrary to our predisposed notions are as clear as a spring morning.¹

I’ve been thinking about the anchoring effect, because it’s about the only explanation I can summon for the fact that roughly 45 percent of Americans still think Donald Trump is doing a good job as president. It’s no small thing, granted, that Trump’s approval rating has fallen steadily during his first three months in office, so that a majority now disapproves of what he is doing.² But the fact that so many people remain Trump supporters — despite weeks of chaos in policy and execution, despite so many campaign promises already broken — must be attributable to what might charitably be called a misunderstanding of who he is and what he’s about. People got an idea anchored in their brains about the man, and it’s hard for that to be shaken.

Even so, we seem to be nearing a point at which Trump is going to have to adopt the line attributed to Groucho Marx, “Who’re you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”³ Even the most devoted MAGA-head, whose understanding of reality is distorted by the likes of Fox News and Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, must be finding it hard to reconcile their preferred image of Donald Trump with the reality of his failing, flailing presidency.

No, America’s slide toward authoritarianism hasn’t been reversed, nor has the global deterioration of our nation’s influence been stemmed, and we aren’t soon going to be free of the malicious cruelty of so much of what this 47^th presidency is about. But public opinion eventually catches up with even the most stubborn politicians, forcing them to modify their behavior. A groundswell focusing on this presidency’s failures could provoke even the gutless Republicans of Congress to follow so many members of the judicial branch who are standing up to Trump.

There’s reason to think, then, that Donald Trump’s best days may now be behind him. For many of us, any hint of relief is welcome. As reality buffets the illusion that is Trump’s image, there’s a bit of wind in the sails of the resistance. But there’s danger blowing in the wind, too.

Before he became a politician, Donald Trump had a business career that, as many New Yorkers recall, counted at least as many failures as triumphs. His companies filed for bankruptcy six times, and more Trump businesses shut down without declaring bankruptcy while owing millions of dollars to vendors, employees and lenders. Three of the bankruptcies were for casinos; in the first two alone, bankruptcy laws enabled him to evade $4.8 billion in debt obligations. He borrowed $245 million to buy the Eastern Airlines Shuttle, rebranded it as Trump Airlines — with new gold fixtures in the bathrooms! — and then, after two years, defaulted on the debt and gave up the company. Other failed Trump ventures included efforts to sell Trump-branded vodka, fragrances, mattresses, steaks, bottled water and board games. Also going belly-up: Trump Magazine, Trump Mortgages, the GoTrump.com travel site, Trump University, Trump Tower Tampa and the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue.⁴

But, you say, the guy became a billionaire, so doesn’t that show his business acumen? It would, except that his apparent success was built on a string of financial shams that began with some $400 million of family money, as the Pulitzer-winning reporting of The New York Times revealed seven years ago. “In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer,” the Times reported.

That was published before a New York jury found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records, and before a judge ruled that the Trump Organization violated the state’s fraud laws, resulting in a $400 million (unpaid) fine and Trump being barred from being an officer or director of any corporation in New York. No wonder The New Yorker declared him “a reckless conman.”⁵

But that’s not the impression of Donald Trump that took hold in the minds of millions of Americans who first encountered him through his 1987 ghostwritten book, Trump: The Art of the Deal, or through the reality TV series The Apprentice, which ran for 14 seasons on NBC. Both presented him as a successful business mogul — decisive, insightful and charismatic.

Unsurprisingly, then, one-third of Trump voters last year told pollsters that they supported him because of the “economy” or because “he is a good businessman.”⁶ They weren’t deterred by the fact that the multibillion-dollar tax cuts he pushed through during his first term didn’t deliver the growth he promised, nor that the tariffs he imposed then didn’t yield the promised factory jobs. Influenced by right-wing media, some 77 million voters chose Trump — a narrow but decisive popular vote margin of 1.5 points over Kamala Harris.

If Trump were in fact a sharp-witted business leader, he would be unlikely to install unseasoned sycophants like Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel in crucial positions; he wouldn’t impose hastily-concocted policies like massive tariffs and then pull them back quickly; he would understand that credibility matters not only in human relations, but also in international affairs, as the decline in America’s standing internationally over the past three months has revealed.

And there’s this: Sophisticated business leaders understand the intangible value of goodwill — something a business has that isn’t tied to specific physical or financial assets, but that is a key component of a company’s overall valuation. The concept of goodwill — created by such factors as customer loyalty, reputation in the marketplace and future prospects — is a concept taught to first-year M.B.A. students. Goodwill matters to a nation, as well. Trump ought to understand that, though he does not have an M.B.A. Yes, that degree is granted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Trump’s alma mater, but his degree is B.S.

Really. I didn’t make that up.

It may be tempting to think that millions of Americans supported Trump in three presidential elections because of a mass delusional disorder — a mental condition that leaves an individual unable to tell what’s real from what’s imagined. But I’d say his success, rather, reflects an eagerness among Americans to imagine that he might be the kind of a leader they want. When Henry David Thoreau wrote, “This world is but a canvas to our imaginations,” he was suggesting that we each develop a sense of reality based on our own preconceptions.

We Americans want our leaders to be bold and brave, and Trump can lay claim to that: He does what he wants to do, consequences be damned, and his gutsy response to being shot last summer gave him a sheen of bravery that might erase the cowardice revealed in behavior such as his constant kowtowing to Vladimir Putin.

But we also want competence in government, at a minimum. And in the emerging failures of so many moves by this administration, Trump supporters are reluctantly confronting a reality that must challenge the anchoring effect that has sustained the president’s popularity. Many will defend their original beliefs, notwithstanding what they’re experiencing, because that’s what our brains tend to do. But eventually facts catch up with myths, and some facts are becoming hard for even Trump backers to ignore:

Markets have plunged, along with Americans’ wealth, then gone up and down wildly. Inflation is picking up, along with the threat of recession.

America has alienated most of the nations of the world, including our nearest neighbors and longest-standing friends.

Trump’s vow to quickly end the war in Ukraine devolved this week into a plaintive plea, “Vladimir, STOP!” on social media, and his approach to the Gaza war — a massive real-estate deal requiring the forced relocation of two million unwilling people — has won not a whisper of support from any other nation.

China, often cast by Trump as America’s most dangerous foe, is emboldened, filling the void left by the Trump-ordered U.S. retreat from life-saving support globally, and clearly holding the upper hand in negotiations over tariffs.

Federal judges — including many appointed by Trump — have knocked down his executive orders almost 100 times. Trump’s efforts to curtail the federal bureaucracy have mostly fizzled, while upending the lives of tens of thousands of public servants.

Some of his targets are finally starting to stand firm in the face of threats, including big law firms, universities and elected officials.

Even on immigration, the issue that was arguably Trump’s strongest advantage, a majority of Americans are now rejecting the administration’s unconstitutional over-reach.⁷

There is potential danger in how Trump and his supporters face turmoil and setbacks. Last week, Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley told Dana Milbank, the insightful Washington Post columnist, that Trump’s chaotic presidency is unprecedented in U.S. history. “What we’re witnessing with Trump is just raw vengeance and belittling fellow Americans,” Brinkley said, “and creating a tinderbox situation that makes people feel we’re in a neo civil war that could go sideways at any moment.”⁸

This reality is beginning to sink into the consciousness of even the most avid Trump supporters, and it is pervasive among the independents who gave him the presidency and who hold the key to the 2026 midterm elections. As facts come smack up against preconceived notions of Trump, some powerful disillusionment will surely take hold. Will anchored beliefs become uncomfortably dislodged? Or will the faithful and their leader over-compensate by embracing even more extreme measures, with Trump continuing to insist that only lying eyes see problems in his approach? Eckhart Tolle, the German-born self-help teacher, has often focused on the peril of self-delusion. “Emotional suffering is created in the moment we don’t accept what is,” he wrote.

There’s no turnabout on the horizon as the 100-day mark of the second Trump presidency approaches. Many of those who backed Trump’s re-election are beginning to feel uncomfortable with the results of what is nothing less than an American catastrophe.

There: We’ve named it. No re-branding can change the harsh reality confronting us all. We can only do our best to tolerate what we must, resist what we can, and endure. And so we shall.

1. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/healthier-minds-happier-world/202311/why-people-believe-what-they-are-predisposed-to-believe

2. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html

3. Actually, the line was delivered in Duck Soup by Chico, but Groucho tends to get the credit. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/07/31/believe-eyes/

4. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/as-a-businessman-trump-was-the-biggest-loser-of-all

5. https://www.publicopiniononline.com/story/opinion/columnists/2022/09/07/when-it-comes-to-business-former-president-trump-track-record-dismal/65474745007/

6. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-economy-business-voter-poll-b2668179.html

7. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/04/25/trump-immigration-approval-ratings-drop-poll/

8. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/04/18/trump-100-days-failure/

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ENDNOTE

THANK YOU for reading The Upstate American, and for joining us in the conversation about our common ground, this great country. As we together navigate these challenging times, I hope you’ll join us again next week — or send me a message with ideas you’d like to see us address.

-Rex Smith