It’s October 2016, the United States presidential election is less than a month away, a ‘bombshell’ audio recording is leaked of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in private conversation in which he said: “I did try & fuck her. She was married. I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. I just start kissing them. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything—grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” He defended his words by chalking it up to “locker room talk” and so did his supporters. He won the election two weeks later.

Let’s fast forward to today and Trump has just completed his first year in office as President of the United States. He is in the midst of a second government shutdown in less than a month, he is currently under federal investigation by the FBI, and his approval rating a record low at 35% according to a poll by Investor’s Business Daily. Two weeks ago, over 1,000,000 women around the world took to the streets and marched in solidarity against the Trump administration for the second anniversary of the Women’s March.

Despite Trump’s many failures and shortcomings, his committed swarm of devotees will cling on to any excuse to defend, stand up for, or agree with Trump, no matter what. Especially when the majority of his policies, ideals, and rhetoric go against what would be beneficial for them. Why is this?

Cognitive dissonance was coined by Leon Festinger in 1957. It is described as a tension that results when a person behaves in a way that contradicts their beliefs, attitudes, and values that comes with a change of their attitude. Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency in order to mentally function in the real world. It’s physically uncomfortable to experience cognitive dissonance. Which is why when it comes to politics, many people are so militant in holding onto their beliefs, regardless if it is contradictory to their attitudes, actions, or lifestyle.

We see ourselves as good, moral, and smart individuals. Because we have these assumptions about ourselves, cognitive dissonance always causes discomfort. Because of this, we try to find a way to feel consistent once again. This can be accomplished by resolving the idea. There are three main resolution processes, we can either: change our behavior to bring it in line with the dissonant cognition, justify our behavior through changing our cognitions, and attempting to justify our behavior by adding new cognitions.

Trump supporters align Trump with their deeply ingrained beliefs. They have convinced themselves that he is a good Christian man, who cares deeply about the poor worker and the country. They look at him as an extremely intelligent, competent, and self-made businessman. He is also seen as someone who will “drain the swamp,” increase our military spending, and the ultimate betterment of the country. Many of his supporters overlook his various acts of racism, sexism, classism, and xenophobia.

Let’s take Christian conservatives for example, 80% of white Evangelical conservatives voted for Trump. Christians are self described as ‘value voters,’ who tend to vote based off of morals and family values. Trump is a contradiction of everything they claim to believe in – he is a vulgar, 3 thrice married, business tycoon who built his brand off of excessive money and wealth, sexualizing women, and debauchery. When a headline comes on the news about another vulgar statement Trump has made, these voters use the three processes as discussed earlier to defend Trump.

By justifying their behavior through changing their cognitions, aka: “we knew that Trump was flawed but we took a chance on him anyway,” “Trump raised Ivanka, so he must not be that bad,” “Mike Pence will do a lot of good for our country” or the famous ‘whataboutism’ deflection. “Well, what about Hillary and her emails!” If we change our attitude, we are justifying the belief and restoring consistency. We can also add a thought to help rationalize the inconsistency, “Trump will appoint pro-life Supreme Court judges and fight for religious liberty,” or we could change one of our thoughts completely.

Those who decide to change their thought to restore consistency have to face that they were wrong. Many of these people can be seen on a Subreddit called Trumpgret with over 84,000 subscribers. Because sometimes it’s hard to admit you’re wrong, but it’s much harder to live with the lie you portray.