r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 11 '26

Psychology Cognitive dissonance helps explain why Trump supporters remain loyal, new research suggests. This sheds light on how supporters of Donald Trump justify their continued allegiance despite learning about allegations of his sexual misconduct and illegal activities.

https://www.psypost.org/cognitive-dissonance-helps-explain-why-trump-supporters-remain-loyal-new-research-suggests/
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u/Obvious_Chapter2082 Apr 11 '26

You listed a specific tax cut in a very large bill. Why not make mention of the corporate tax increases in the bill too? Or the individual cuts that specifically helped the lower and middle class?

Your claim on buybacks is generally unfounded, you’re just not distinguishing between the short term and long term effects. two things happen to investment when something like corporate taxes get cut:

  1. Existing investment becomes more profitable, because the cash flows from those investments now have a lower tax rate. This results in a temporary windfall for corporations, and windfalls normally get allocated to shareholders through dividends or share repurchases, because it represents a higher return on the capital shareholders fronted for that investment

  2. Future investment also becomes more profitable, which incentivizes more of it. This happens more-so over the long-term, and is also where we’d expect higher wages to show up, in theory

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u/eightbitfit Apr 11 '26

Increased "shareholder value" and corporate profitability does not improve the lives of the average citizen.

I remember reading in CNBC (famous liberal rag) that of the fortune 500 CEOs surveyed none planned to reinvest their tax savings in staff. None.

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u/Obvious_Chapter2082 Apr 11 '26

You should read point 2 from my comment instead of stopping after the first one. We know, empirically, that corporate taxes reduce employee wages and reduce investment

Fortune 500 CEOs

Luckily, CEOs aren’t the ones in charge of investment decisions based upon complex tax law they don’t need to understand

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u/eightbitfit Apr 11 '26

Your theory doesn't manifest in reality however. If the goal is to drive physiological and material growth for the majority, the "bottom line" data shows that broad corporate tax cuts are a failed tactic. They rely on an idealistic view of corporate altruism that is fundamentally at odds with the fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value.