It’s not possible to put a visible thought bubble which members of Trump’s MAGA cult can see, and even if this was possible there’s no guarantee it would break their addction to him.

The thought bubble could let everyone know what Trump was really thinking including and could say “I think you’re all stupid” as well as what I wrote above.

There’s a lot to learn from the people who convinced millions that breathing a dangerous addictive drug which could kill you into your lungs was good for you and made you more appealing also persuaded people that one brand of cigarettes rather than another would make you cooler knew what they were doing. Of course what they had going for them was that once hooked on nicotine it was an extremely difficult physical habit to break. At least conservatives hard-wired into their belief systems aren’t suffering from a physiological addiction. This should give us some hope.

What progressives need to develop aren’t more refined logical arguments. Neuroscientist Bobby Azarian explains why it is exceeding difficult to use logic to change MAGA minds in his Raw Story article “Why Trump supporters’ brains prevent them from changing their minds: neuroscientis logic won’t work” here.

Considering the science explained by Azarian I concluded that what is needed is to flood the airwaves with messages crafted by advertising geniuses. It doesn’t matter that these messages will either be deceptive or outright lies like those in Prevagen and Balance of Nature vitamin commercials (which at least won’t kill you even if they won’t make you smarter or healthier). All these political ads have to do is convince people that voting for Democrats will turn them into Marlboro men and Vigrinia Slims women.

You’ve seen Marlboro man ads like this one:

Less known are these ads marketing to moms (which Snopes assures us were real):

Here’s a classic Virginia Slims ad which brings to my mind the depiction of Trump as Superman:

The Virgina Slims slogan “you’ve come a long way, baby” was ironic as it was untrue since when the product came out in 1968 when the Women’s Lib movement was starting to gain impetus (see article “Virginia Slims Cashes in on Women’s Lib, Declaring: ‘You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby’”) although women had been given the right to vote they’d hardly come a long way as evidenced by them being referred to as babies.

There’s a good case to be made that the best named cigarette was Kools since it had two meanings, one that the menthol made it taste cool and the other that it made those who smoked it cool and even could cure a cold. What a great slogan for it’s medicinal benefit:

Kools and Newports, both menthol cigarettes were heavily marketted to Black communities (read article).

Lucky Strike must have discovered that some people smoked despite the fact that it irritate their throats and decided that since they were addicted anyway they might be convinced that there was a cigrarette that had the opposite effect:

Like it or not breaking the MAGA addiction will mean Democrats hiring advertising experts who are willing to lie for a good cause. It didn’t matter that there was no way Herbert Hoover could assure that everyone would have a chicken to eat, but the slogan was brilliant.

Getting back to what neuroscientist Bobby Azarian writes:

But what if I told you that our neural wiring determines whether we have the ability to change our minds? What if I told you that science suggests conservatives, who are extremely likely to be voting for Trump this election, generally have more rigid cognitive systems, which means they are less adaptable, and therefore, less likely to adopt a new framework or perspective when their approach fails? 

A seminal study by social psychologist David Amodio and colleagues at New York University suggests that the typical conservative is not likely to be convinced by something as simple as a logically persuasive argument. For some conservatives, it’s like asking them to change the color of their eyes. A progressive worldview cannot pierce their psyche because being dogmatic is programmed into the fabric of that worldview. It is not just that they are “stubborn”; their brains are actually wired to resist things that are new and different. So, you could say they lack “free will” when it comes to their voting decision. When we speak of free will in a modern sense, we are talking about the personal agency that enables one to override ingrained biases and consider alternative perspectives.

From Raw Story

Consider again what it took to break the addiction to cigarettes. The Surgeon General warnings on all packs of cigarettes probably didn’t do much good. What probably worked was a hugh advertising campaign. Here’s a website with 132 of the best ads warning that smoking would kill you.

Several cigarette companies tried to block newer graphic ads like those proposed by the FDA in 2020.

This is from Wikpedia: In March 2020, the FDA approved a set of 11 new graphic warning labels with images for cigaratte packaging, with a deadline of compliance being set to June 18, 2021. The mandate would have required packaging to cover the top 50% of the front and rear panels of packages, as well as at least 20% of the top. Tobacco manufacturers R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Philip Morris USA, ITG Brands LLC and Liggett Group LLC filed a joint motion requesting a preliminary injunction on implementing the labels and a ruling to prohibit enforcement in April 2020. They argued that the new packaging would have been a violation of the First Amendment. In December 2022, U.S. district judge J. Campbell Barker of the Eastern District of Texas ordered the new guidelines to be vacated, arguing the multiple interpretation of images cannot prove neutrality. The deadline was pushed to November 6, 2023

Wikipedia

Smoking is still the number one casue of preventable death in the United States even though advertising had a major effect to reduce the number of smokers.

Those wanting to break the MAGA addiction can learn from the commercials used to convince people to stop smoking.

These are screenshots from the number one ad:

This is the kind of campaign that is required in order to re-wire the conservative brain.