Know Thine Enemy
I highly recommend the following Sam Harris podcast, where Scott Adams interprets Trump’s actions in a way that explains them as a rational pursuit of widely recognized ethical ends.
https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/triggered
To put my recommendation in context, please appreciate that I have an unreasonable devotion to “true facts.” Aspies have been called “pathological truthtellers.” Lies shake the foundation of my universe, and possibly those of the only universe we all share. In the shifting hierarchy of ethical principles and real world conflicts among those principles in my personal life, truth-telling usually conquers.
That said, I do understand that affirmative misrepresentations can serve ethical ends, even though it is only the rarest of circumstances that justify using this (to me) hideously abhorrent means. Kind of like how I view torture.
Much to my amazement and education, Sam Adams’ explanation of the world views of Trump and his supporters squarely places their actions among those upon which reasonable people might disagree.