[cssinate]

It's gotta be tough! When you've made that your entire personality, it's hard to drop it. You've made friends, and perhaps lost others, by being this person. To just admit "I was wrong" potentially means alienating all of their friends and family. I'd imagine it's why so many people are still so vehemently flat earthers.

[acdha]

It’s especially hard when those beliefs have lead you to justify treating other people horribly. If you’ve gone around accusing people of grooming children for abuse because they thought gay or trans people deserved basic human rights, if you’ve said supporting immigration means supporting rapists and murderers, etc. it’s much harder to come back from that than if it was more traditional policy differences like whether we should have a particular tax rate. I think that’s intentional in some cases, just as with cults where pushing extreme claims and breaking outside ties makes it harder to leave.

[sorcerer-mar]

Yes it is quite literally a cult. It has all the key characteristics including but not limited to the ones you mention.

[netsharc]

And admitting it would mean bursting the bubble of "I'm an intelligent person." (and even "a good person"). It's easier to construct a virtual reality where you're still the one with the clue and everyone else are just utter morons.

Also, with everything being written down nowadays (on your social media), changing your opinion means inviting mockery of past comments being dug up to be flung at you. Then again, the idiots in power seem to have developed a thick skin for this.

A little over a month ago: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/26/g-s1-50605/conspiracy-theorie... / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43194910

[ziddoap]

>"changing your opinion means inviting mockery of past comments being dug up to be flung at you."

This has to be one of the most damaging things about social media, in my opinion. I never really understood why changing your mind about something as you get new information is looked down on and mocked, but it is.

[ajmurmann]

The social issue go much beyond this. The country to a large degree has sorted itself along party lines. Changing your political opinion in either direction will likely lead to arguments with people you are close to and might get you ostracized from your friend group or even family. For most people this is much worse than being ridiculed online!

[matwood]

> And admitting it would mean bursting the bubble of "I'm an intelligent person." (and even "a good person").

Or, "I do my own research".

[sitkack]

This is why you keep those friends, and instead of replacing your identity, you keep it and kick out the false profits. We need a Martin Luther moment in MAGA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther

[freedomben]

Can you say more about what a Martin Luther moment in MAGA would be? You mean like a MAGA person willing to rise up and (figuratively) nail theses to the door, aka call out the bad parts of the movement? Some people have tried and they get bounced out pretty quickly. Trump is the master at ending people for criticizing him, even lightly