Former President Donald Trump's supporters appear to be sticking with him no matter how many times he gets indicted or how many winnable elections he costs the Republican Party.
Marcel Danesi, a professor of semiotics and linguistic anthropology at the University of Toronto, explained to MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday that getting Trump supporters to abandon their idol is extremely difficult, and he drew an analogy to the Dan Brown novel "The Da Vinci Code" to explain why.
"I call it the 'Da Vinci Code effect," he said in describing Trump's ability to pump his followers full of falsehoods and conspiracy theories. "I'm referring to the novel by Dan Brown in 2001, where he generates a huge conspiracy about, you know, the history of Christ. How does he do it? He takes little bits and pieces of history, puts them together, cites texts, and all of a sudden, you're saying, 'Well, it's got to be true because we put it together.' The reason is, our brain has a narrative structure. From childhood, we listen to stories, and stories become believable. We listen to them over and over. Even if they're mythological stories... we have a brain that is embedded in myths."
Given how deeply Trump has made himself the central mythical hero figure in his supporters' brains, Danesi said it was hard -- but not impossible -- to get them to turn.
READ MORE: Trump is setting up a 'total nightmare' for Kevin McCarthy: CNN's Phil Mattingly
"Once that happens, it's that switch, the 'Da Vinci Code' switch is on, and it is so difficult to turn it off," he explained. "History teaches us, though, that, eventually, the brain recalibrates itself. Over time, truth does prevail."
Watch the video below or at this link.
'The DaVinci Code' shows why it's so hard to deprogram Trump's followers: linguistwww.youtube.com
