Tucker Carlson thinks his viewers are stupid because they are stupid. Sometimes it's really that simple. Stupid enough to suspend all critical thinking and believe whatever they are told. Stupid enough to put a political agenda over a fact-based approach to a problem. Stupid enough to think that only one side ever is right, and the other…
Tucker Carlson thinks his viewers are stupid because they are stupid. Sometimes it's really that simple. Stupid enough to suspend all critical thinking and believe whatever they are told. Stupid enough to put a political agenda over a fact-based approach to a problem. Stupid enough to think that only one side ever is right, and the other side only ever is wrong. And most of all stupid enough to ignore that he, and his fellow talking head fame and fortune whores, are in it mostly, if not solely, for the fame and fortune.
Only they do not seem to know that they are being played, on an ongoing basis. It is a frame that is built for dummies and fits them perfectly. They will go down with this Titanic because they do not think it can sink. The question remains how many of the rest of us will be taken down with them as long as the entertainer-politicians they vote for remain in power and continue to undermine the greater good.
That may be true of many. But others in that world -- not necessarily regular Fox viewers but people aligned with what Carlson promotes -- are certainly not stupid. They just have a worldview and a set of prejudices that dispose them to accept what many others see as clearly false.
All of us have prior assumptions that influence what we'll accept as so obviously true that it doesn't need proof -- and then we might seek out the evidence that supports it and reject what doesn't. But it appears to me that Trump brought out an extraordinary measure of credulity in people who longed for a sort of messianic hero to slay their enemies.
When people with respectable academic credentials asserted that Trump is outstanding for his "compassion"; that he sincerely cares about the little guy; that he loves America more earnestly than all his critics; that he is devoted to rooting out corruption and restoring the integrity of the constitutional republic, etc., I concluded that these judgments were not based on evidence or rational thinking so much as on emotion, and especially on hostility toward people that Trump marked as his enemies. But then, those people began to conform their own enmities around Trump's personal grievances.
Yes, a very interesting and apt analysis. I’ll never get over “Dr” Ronnie Jackson proclaiming that Trump could easily live to 200 years, if he just ate fewer hamburgers.
Lies were erupting all over the place, from people with credentials. But who could seriously believe THAT whopper? And why didn’t the extreme flights of fancy cause more general questioning, in the “just asking questions” cult?
I agree, Carol. All the "people with respectable academic credentials" who believe the opposite of what is patently true, the doctors who counseled against the Covid vaccine and in favor of ivermectin, the lawyers who spouted ridiculousness---all those people made me realize that just because someone has an academic/medical/law degree doesn't mean they are good thinkers, or even intelligent.
BTW, as I was giving my dog her monthly Heartworm prevention medication yesterday, I noticed the label--it is ivermectin.
Mary, your BTW made me laugh! During the height of pandemic my sister said she was considering using Ivermectin for her boys, both of whom came down with Covid. ( yes, she has gone to the dark side) I was horrified, and immediately texted her a picture of my dog’s heart worm package, as well as the PDR info. Then she was horrified! She would never give her children dog medicine! I still have hope that she’ll recover from all this- and yes, she is an attorney….
I don’t disagree, but … I don’t think it’s that simple. David French made a great point in the Focus Group podcast with Sarah about working side by side with some of the “stupid” doing tornado relief.
Many were legitimately fine, kind, reasonable people that you would welcome as a neighbor or friend. Until the subject turned to politics, and they shared some jarring, nutty beliefs.
So … we can write them off as stupid, or we can focus on the reality that even intelligent human beings are susceptible to tribalism and to being manipulated by skilled con men and propagandists.
What’s absent is not “intelligence”, but self-awareness, media literacy, critical thinking skills, exposure to other perspectives. The way to reach (some of) them is not to write them off, but to keep these things in mind.
Some of them are flat out stupid. Some of them are flat out crazy (in the vernacular sense, not the clinical).
MOST of them are what I refer to as willfully stupid. They choose to be stupid and ill-informed about particular things--because getting outside of those boundaries makes them extremely uncomfortable and makes them ask hard questions about themselves and their beliefs--hard questions that they DO NOT want to address.
This is not a condition that pertains only to these people--we ALL do it to greater or lesser degrees. Extremists tend to be.. extreme about it.
It seems like an unresolvable paradox of the function of the human brain. I've probably got another quarter century on this planet, and I know I'll never understand that dichotomy of practical, intelligent people who choose to be willfully ignorant of certain subjects that they still insist on discussing and arguing about, yet refuse to ever let any new information intrude on their opinions
Do not underestimate fear in the equation. Fear of "other" (racism), fear of economic decline, crime, loss of culture ("woke"), etc. If you have a deep-seated anxiety about something, and someone/something is offering "protection" from that thing or things, it forms a strong bond.
All people have anxieties, but some are more anxious than others. There are people who go to Italy and only eat McDonalds because they're anxious/distrustful/afraid of the local cuisine.
That's the heck of it. On a personal level, most of the cultists are genuinely nice. They help watch the neighbors' kids, pitch in at community events, etc. The problem is the politics they promote. We here can see that we're on the fascism train, and that train leads to war and death camps. I don't think most of the cultists actually want this, but they're either too blind or stupid to see. I wish I knew how to square this circle.
They think only the evil Libs will get sent to concentration camps or their favorite, Guantanamo. So, they blindly follow. Most are completely ignorant about the Nazis, who first came for the Jews, but then came for everyone else. I see way too many parallels to the Nazi rise to power in today's GOP and it scares me to death.
In “A Christmas Carol”, the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals two children huddling for protection beneath his robes. He says the boy is Ignorance, the girl is Want, and most of all to fear this boy. Ron DS is working on increasing that boy’s numbers, at least in FL. Democracy is in an uphill struggle for sure.
1 of them is my son! I have certainly become more liberal over the past decade, although I tend to be a moderate. I used to lean more conservative, but that has changed.
With the exception of the statement of your son...we sound very similar. While most people tend to get more conservative as they age...I've done the opposite but in moderation. Unfortunately....some of my past conservative friends act like I'm the one who has gone nuts.
I listened to part of that podcast; I had to stop when the audio was focused on the group participants. They are so repellent.
I will always maintain that for most MAGAs, there is an element of willful collusion in following the lies. I’ve seen it myself when I forced myself to try to associate with some Trump believers in the effort to understand them. When challenged ever so gently with actual facts, they folded instantly. They knew.
It is almost entirely willful... or just sheer laziness--sometimes a combo of the two--the laziness or avoidance of effort colluding (as it were) with the desire to not have beliefs challenged.
Given how much information is available, in the wide variety of forms it is available in, and how easily much of it can be accessed, being uninformed/ignorant about things that you are so passionate about is almost always a choice. A triumph of the "lizard brain" over the rational mind.
Some people simply want to believe things. Some people encounter things and ask questions--that lead them on a path to both information and more questions--which they then pursue.
The first is far more common than the second. It is not a matter of intelligence but of nature.
1. Funny story - I was returning home from a walk, listening to that focus group pod with earbuds, my wife heard me cussing out loud before I walked in the door, asked me who I was talking to. I was reacting to those folks comments. LOL.
2. Same experience as you when engaging MAGAs in discussion - folding inevitably results when persistently, politely challenged.
As I noted to GG, there are the Stupids. And there are the Cultists. The worst among them are Stupid Cultists. So many who are so well educated yet suspend the fruit of that intellectual development in favor of an agenda -- proof that educated and smart are not necessarily the same thing.
Most contemporary education is rather circumscribed, unless you actually have a decent degree in the humanities from a decent university.
You can put what most people know about something other than their jobs or hobbies in a rather small box... and a lot of it is based on vague recollection of something they did not really pay attention to in school, or that they heard somewhere, or tripped over without much context.
People tend to know/believe more wrong things about Marxism or Nietzsche or Adam Smith or any of a large number of things, than they know correct things.
How stupid do you have to be to believe that Hillary Clinton is a serial killer?
It's a combination of incredibly stupid mixed with the misperception that you've outsmarted everyone else. If you believe something that stupid, you tell yourself you're not stupid, you're just the smartest person in the room, and it's everyone else who's stupid.
LOL....I vividly remember....my boot camp Company Commander joking about the upcoming graduation ceremony and marching parade...."Learn how to march correctly! Don't be the one with the mom exclaiming 'Oh...look at my Johnny....he's the only one in step!'"
I have definitely seem that psychology at work. The main feature is laziness; too lazy to ferret out the truth. Why bother when the lie gives you an easy buzz? They actually do want the truth; they want a quick fix, mainlined by Tucker.
I don’t think it’s laziness. My friend will tell me “Do your research! Wake up, sheeple!” She does her research; she scours The Gateway Pundit, The Epoch Times, The New York Post, etc., and all her friends she talks to do the same. They reinforce each other. It’s a closed system.
This is exactly right. They never venture outside their misinformation silos. They have been brainwashed to believe that mainstream media, which has journalistic standards, is "fake news".
I recognize that experience. Which leads me to another speculation about their mentality. I think there’s a whole bunch of people who feel chronically disempowered, and without a meaningful sense of purpose. The acceptance implied by belonging to this group of rebels, that have toppled the powerful, gives them a sense of purpose and belonging that is otherwise absent. I vote for Compulsory National Service. And I know it will never happen.
I also vote for Compulsory High School Civics classes. It used to happen. (My friend was incensed when I told her each state sets their own voting standards.)
We have compulsory civics/government classes in my district. I live in Trumpistan.
Education is not actually the answer.
As one of my compatriots pointed out via a poster prominently displayed in his classroom for a couple of decades:
Learning is a verb, it requires action on your part.
Far too many people are unwilling to undertake that action.
We teach many things, but many of those things are not actually learned. That is because they are not seen or understood to have value. Not thought to be necessary. Don't add to your employability.
The actual answer is building a society/culture that values certain things--things that are more constructive than destructive.
This requires both societal norms and laws that work in concert and are mutually reinforcing.
It requires societal and political leadership to set positive examples and to work within the established laws and norms.
It requires a society that understands value as being something more than a number with a $ in front of it.
It requires people that are actually curious (and respected for being so and having the resources to act upon that curiosity--even if it isn't going to generate a profit stream for someone).
When you look at who we (as a culture/society/political entity) value, admire, and reward, you can see that we are not headed in a direction that is conducive to improving things.
The lack of the above is exacerbated by the fact that norms are in flux, they are contested. Norms tend to be in flux (over longer periods of time) but the level of visible contestation and resistance has usually not been as high as is current. That is what happens when speech is largely unregulated and ill-informed (at best).
I can't take credit for the Kruger Vorhees ticket. That goes to Beau of the 5th Column and one of his ever changing T-shirts. (That I can't always read all of).
Actually, I think they DO know they’re being played. But in their minds, they are in on the joke of owning the libs. I’m thinking we have made the mistake for 7 years of assuming MAGA-heads really believe this stuff, and need sympathy because of their disability of being stupid. They are willfully involved with the lying; worse, in my opinion.
I don't disagree with any of this, but I might add that because true politics involves some very complex issues and having to "get along" with others...I think some of this is being lazy. It's just so much easier to let Tucker do your thinking for you...especially when he's so adamant and vocal about being right...and everyone else being wrong.
That's a lot easier than having to read up on the issues, listen to both sides and sometimes making a decision to go against the tribe.
You may be right. All I know is that I have a number of friends of varying degrees who are rational and reasonable in other ways: well educated, good parents to their children, and successful at their jobs. Yet when the talk goes political they default immediately into the mode of "Well, I saw on Fox yesterday that ..." or "If enough of those people are saying it, what are the chances that they all are wrong?". It seems that there is a disconnect with how they approach politics and the need to raise their game in analyzing it and discussing it, compared to pretty much every other area of their lives. That's why I subscribe to the cult theory. So good and righteous in some many ways yet so warped in another -- Brainwashing 101.
It can also be labled "Hypnotism." I often respond to a "Friends" post on FB with a concise paragraph of facts deconstructing their statement and pose the question "aren't you at all interested in looking up the facts and truth of what you are proposing/parroting?" I tell them that I googled, copied and pasted this response and it took me less than a minute. I will add that in some way higher scholastic achievement and intelligence can act to reinforce and crystalize bad ideas. I give you Josh Hawley, Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz.
I’ve done similar, but try not to use words like “parroting”, it can seem like accusing them of mindlessness, inducing defensiveness. Higher goes the wall.
"Fox you say...Let me tell you about what I've heard and read about in a massive lawsuit about them."
The goal wouldn't be to get them to trust 'normal' media, rather to get them from a place of trusting Fox to trusting no one. We're never going to get most of the casual fox viewers and Trump voters to think a democrat isn't worse than the devil (pronouns!), but if they at least could realize that fox is lying to them, they might be less swayed by some of the bullshit. Maybe it gets an always republican voter to stay home more often.
I would hope that what you say could come about, but I think they'd just go find their dopamine-hate fix on OANN or newsmax.
I don't know if my younger sibling started out on a fox diet, but when she wasn't getting the same rush she switched to OANN. I mistakenly said that I didn't think that was a reliable news source (my bad). She came right back at me saying it was very reliable! She had done her research!
She was also a great believer in ivermectin for Covid which had put her a weeklong hospital stay. She made her hydroxychloroquine using grapefruit peels. She won't get vaxxed.
I love her to death, but I haven't brought up the aftermath of J6, or what she thought of it. It breaks my heart that this awfulness has a hold of her. Dems aren't perfect, but jeez!
My heart goes out to you. I know how I feel about my friend, it must be so much worse when it’s your sister. At least mine both loathe Trump. (I had no idea they were lifelong Republicans until Trump. Heck, my friend was a Democrat until Trump, and that sure burns. It’s unreal the effect he’s had on people.)
I’ve had to quit saying the phrase “I did some research”, because it’s so thoroughly associated with the anti-vaxers. It’s almost like waving a red MAGA hat.
Well, there is research and then there is "research."
;)
I have a friend who is rather contrarian. Highly intelligent and educated. His contrarian nature leads him down paths less traveled (primarily because they are less traveled--and thus not part of the vast conspiracy of complacency and groupthink represented by mainstream ideas).
The fewer people that believe something the more likely he is to be attracted to it.
He will do a lot of research but it is very narrow and focused on proving his point rather than disproving it.
Two big things for him are that Shakespeare did not actually write Shakespeare (it was the Earl of Oxford) (added point of information is that he is an English teacher) and that we did not land on the moon in the late 60s and early 70s.
I see your logic. But of course logic goes only so far with people who, when confronted with facts and evidence, simply start yelling "Woke!". Evidently it is their coping mechanism.
True, but as I mentioned elsewhere along the same lines, sometimes it is the quiet observer that has their mind changed. Perhaps the spouse of that yeller who normally goes along with the political views of their domineering partner, but has a little seed of doubt planted as they watch them make a fool of themselves by dancing around simple facts.
It is all about the margins. If a few always republican voters can be swayed to stay home, and a few quiet observers change their minds, we might be saved in the short-term. We are in a time of elections of less than 100,000 voters across a nation of 330 million making up the margin of victories. It is all about a few people on the margins. 90 percent of people, you won't change their mind but you don't have to change 90 percent of minds. When my mind has been changed, it hasn't been instantly but later when I rethink a debate alone. Plant the seeds for someone to change their mind later, you might not know it ever happened but keep trying.
Agree. And that’s both reassuring and frightening. So many critical issues are decided by just a few - and those few tend to be the least informed, like the “undecided” voters that get so much attention.
In a sense though, that's only a matter of framing. An election decided by 500 votes could be swayed by changing any 501 people's minds (or 251, if the go from one team to the other). Doesn't matter whether they are die-hards, fence-sitters, or even seldom or never voters. We think in terms of the most wishy-washy of the voters in the middle, but give very little thought to the extremes (yes, less likely to change, but might stay home) and to the vast pool of people that don't vote on any given election.
I can’t disagree with what you write. The cognitive dissonance is baffling. My own foray into their social sphere showed all those good qualities you list. It would interest me to hear the opinions of psychologists and psychiatrists.
So many of our current legislators use their Ivy League educations to hone their skills at dumbed-down deception . Another example is John Kennedy of Louisiana; he does such a great imitation of a backwoods rube, I was shocked to learn of his stellar academic background.
Tucker Carlson thinks his viewers are stupid because they are stupid. Sometimes it's really that simple. Stupid enough to suspend all critical thinking and believe whatever they are told. Stupid enough to put a political agenda over a fact-based approach to a problem. Stupid enough to think that only one side ever is right, and the other side only ever is wrong. And most of all stupid enough to ignore that he, and his fellow talking head fame and fortune whores, are in it mostly, if not solely, for the fame and fortune.
Only they do not seem to know that they are being played, on an ongoing basis. It is a frame that is built for dummies and fits them perfectly. They will go down with this Titanic because they do not think it can sink. The question remains how many of the rest of us will be taken down with them as long as the entertainer-politicians they vote for remain in power and continue to undermine the greater good.
They are self indulgent and prefer willful ignorance.
That may be true of many. But others in that world -- not necessarily regular Fox viewers but people aligned with what Carlson promotes -- are certainly not stupid. They just have a worldview and a set of prejudices that dispose them to accept what many others see as clearly false.
All of us have prior assumptions that influence what we'll accept as so obviously true that it doesn't need proof -- and then we might seek out the evidence that supports it and reject what doesn't. But it appears to me that Trump brought out an extraordinary measure of credulity in people who longed for a sort of messianic hero to slay their enemies.
When people with respectable academic credentials asserted that Trump is outstanding for his "compassion"; that he sincerely cares about the little guy; that he loves America more earnestly than all his critics; that he is devoted to rooting out corruption and restoring the integrity of the constitutional republic, etc., I concluded that these judgments were not based on evidence or rational thinking so much as on emotion, and especially on hostility toward people that Trump marked as his enemies. But then, those people began to conform their own enmities around Trump's personal grievances.
Yes, a very interesting and apt analysis. I’ll never get over “Dr” Ronnie Jackson proclaiming that Trump could easily live to 200 years, if he just ate fewer hamburgers.
Lies were erupting all over the place, from people with credentials. But who could seriously believe THAT whopper? And why didn’t the extreme flights of fancy cause more general questioning, in the “just asking questions” cult?
I agree, Carol. All the "people with respectable academic credentials" who believe the opposite of what is patently true, the doctors who counseled against the Covid vaccine and in favor of ivermectin, the lawyers who spouted ridiculousness---all those people made me realize that just because someone has an academic/medical/law degree doesn't mean they are good thinkers, or even intelligent.
BTW, as I was giving my dog her monthly Heartworm prevention medication yesterday, I noticed the label--it is ivermectin.
Mary, your BTW made me laugh! During the height of pandemic my sister said she was considering using Ivermectin for her boys, both of whom came down with Covid. ( yes, she has gone to the dark side) I was horrified, and immediately texted her a picture of my dog’s heart worm package, as well as the PDR info. Then she was horrified! She would never give her children dog medicine! I still have hope that she’ll recover from all this- and yes, she is an attorney….
I don’t disagree, but … I don’t think it’s that simple. David French made a great point in the Focus Group podcast with Sarah about working side by side with some of the “stupid” doing tornado relief.
Many were legitimately fine, kind, reasonable people that you would welcome as a neighbor or friend. Until the subject turned to politics, and they shared some jarring, nutty beliefs.
So … we can write them off as stupid, or we can focus on the reality that even intelligent human beings are susceptible to tribalism and to being manipulated by skilled con men and propagandists.
What’s absent is not “intelligence”, but self-awareness, media literacy, critical thinking skills, exposure to other perspectives. The way to reach (some of) them is not to write them off, but to keep these things in mind.
And yes, some are just stupid. That’s life.
Some of them are flat out stupid. Some of them are flat out crazy (in the vernacular sense, not the clinical).
MOST of them are what I refer to as willfully stupid. They choose to be stupid and ill-informed about particular things--because getting outside of those boundaries makes them extremely uncomfortable and makes them ask hard questions about themselves and their beliefs--hard questions that they DO NOT want to address.
This is not a condition that pertains only to these people--we ALL do it to greater or lesser degrees. Extremists tend to be.. extreme about it.
Most them are haters. That is what unites them. Trump enabled them to be openly racist. They used to use dog whistles. No more.
The center of all of this is the Us/Them mechanism inherent to human culture/society. It is what gives rise to and empowers the hate.
It seems like an unresolvable paradox of the function of the human brain. I've probably got another quarter century on this planet, and I know I'll never understand that dichotomy of practical, intelligent people who choose to be willfully ignorant of certain subjects that they still insist on discussing and arguing about, yet refuse to ever let any new information intrude on their opinions
Do not underestimate fear in the equation. Fear of "other" (racism), fear of economic decline, crime, loss of culture ("woke"), etc. If you have a deep-seated anxiety about something, and someone/something is offering "protection" from that thing or things, it forms a strong bond.
All people have anxieties, but some are more anxious than others. There are people who go to Italy and only eat McDonalds because they're anxious/distrustful/afraid of the local cuisine.
That's the heck of it. On a personal level, most of the cultists are genuinely nice. They help watch the neighbors' kids, pitch in at community events, etc. The problem is the politics they promote. We here can see that we're on the fascism train, and that train leads to war and death camps. I don't think most of the cultists actually want this, but they're either too blind or stupid to see. I wish I knew how to square this circle.
They think only the evil Libs will get sent to concentration camps or their favorite, Guantanamo. So, they blindly follow. Most are completely ignorant about the Nazis, who first came for the Jews, but then came for everyone else. I see way too many parallels to the Nazi rise to power in today's GOP and it scares me to death.
The answer is - education, education, education. Which is why the GOP has done the best it could to destroy the education system.
There's a lot of difference between "stupid" and "ignorant".
In “A Christmas Carol”, the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals two children huddling for protection beneath his robes. He says the boy is Ignorance, the girl is Want, and most of all to fear this boy. Ron DS is working on increasing that boy’s numbers, at least in FL. Democracy is in an uphill struggle for sure.
I have invoked that scene many times in the past seven years.
1 of them is my son! I have certainly become more liberal over the past decade, although I tend to be a moderate. I used to lean more conservative, but that has changed.
Of course, I still love all my kids…..
With the exception of the statement of your son...we sound very similar. While most people tend to get more conservative as they age...I've done the opposite but in moderation. Unfortunately....some of my past conservative friends act like I'm the one who has gone nuts.
I listened to part of that podcast; I had to stop when the audio was focused on the group participants. They are so repellent.
I will always maintain that for most MAGAs, there is an element of willful collusion in following the lies. I’ve seen it myself when I forced myself to try to associate with some Trump believers in the effort to understand them. When challenged ever so gently with actual facts, they folded instantly. They knew.
It is almost entirely willful... or just sheer laziness--sometimes a combo of the two--the laziness or avoidance of effort colluding (as it were) with the desire to not have beliefs challenged.
Given how much information is available, in the wide variety of forms it is available in, and how easily much of it can be accessed, being uninformed/ignorant about things that you are so passionate about is almost always a choice. A triumph of the "lizard brain" over the rational mind.
Some people simply want to believe things. Some people encounter things and ask questions--that lead them on a path to both information and more questions--which they then pursue.
The first is far more common than the second. It is not a matter of intelligence but of nature.
GG
1. Funny story - I was returning home from a walk, listening to that focus group pod with earbuds, my wife heard me cussing out loud before I walked in the door, asked me who I was talking to. I was reacting to those folks comments. LOL.
2. Same experience as you when engaging MAGAs in discussion - folding inevitably results when persistently, politely challenged.
As I noted to GG, there are the Stupids. And there are the Cultists. The worst among them are Stupid Cultists. So many who are so well educated yet suspend the fruit of that intellectual development in favor of an agenda -- proof that educated and smart are not necessarily the same thing.
Amen brother!!
As a good friend of mine always said....."Highly educated does not necessarily mean well educated."
Most contemporary education is rather circumscribed, unless you actually have a decent degree in the humanities from a decent university.
You can put what most people know about something other than their jobs or hobbies in a rather small box... and a lot of it is based on vague recollection of something they did not really pay attention to in school, or that they heard somewhere, or tripped over without much context.
People tend to know/believe more wrong things about Marxism or Nietzsche or Adam Smith or any of a large number of things, than they know correct things.
Everybody knows...
I heard that....
All my friends say....
How stupid do you have to be to believe that Hillary Clinton is a serial killer?
It's a combination of incredibly stupid mixed with the misperception that you've outsmarted everyone else. If you believe something that stupid, you tell yourself you're not stupid, you're just the smartest person in the room, and it's everyone else who's stupid.
LOL....I vividly remember....my boot camp Company Commander joking about the upcoming graduation ceremony and marching parade...."Learn how to march correctly! Don't be the one with the mom exclaiming 'Oh...look at my Johnny....he's the only one in step!'"
I have definitely seem that psychology at work. The main feature is laziness; too lazy to ferret out the truth. Why bother when the lie gives you an easy buzz? They actually do want the truth; they want a quick fix, mainlined by Tucker.
I don’t think it’s laziness. My friend will tell me “Do your research! Wake up, sheeple!” She does her research; she scours The Gateway Pundit, The Epoch Times, The New York Post, etc., and all her friends she talks to do the same. They reinforce each other. It’s a closed system.
This is exactly right. They never venture outside their misinformation silos. They have been brainwashed to believe that mainstream media, which has journalistic standards, is "fake news".
I recognize that experience. Which leads me to another speculation about their mentality. I think there’s a whole bunch of people who feel chronically disempowered, and without a meaningful sense of purpose. The acceptance implied by belonging to this group of rebels, that have toppled the powerful, gives them a sense of purpose and belonging that is otherwise absent. I vote for Compulsory National Service. And I know it will never happen.
I also vote for Compulsory High School Civics classes. It used to happen. (My friend was incensed when I told her each state sets their own voting standards.)
We have compulsory civics/government classes in my district. I live in Trumpistan.
Education is not actually the answer.
As one of my compatriots pointed out via a poster prominently displayed in his classroom for a couple of decades:
Learning is a verb, it requires action on your part.
Far too many people are unwilling to undertake that action.
We teach many things, but many of those things are not actually learned. That is because they are not seen or understood to have value. Not thought to be necessary. Don't add to your employability.
Well, that’s discouraging.
The actual answer is building a society/culture that values certain things--things that are more constructive than destructive.
This requires both societal norms and laws that work in concert and are mutually reinforcing.
It requires societal and political leadership to set positive examples and to work within the established laws and norms.
It requires a society that understands value as being something more than a number with a $ in front of it.
It requires people that are actually curious (and respected for being so and having the resources to act upon that curiosity--even if it isn't going to generate a profit stream for someone).
When you look at who we (as a culture/society/political entity) value, admire, and reward, you can see that we are not headed in a direction that is conducive to improving things.
The lack of the above is exacerbated by the fact that norms are in flux, they are contested. Norms tend to be in flux (over longer periods of time) but the level of visible contestation and resistance has usually not been as high as is current. That is what happens when speech is largely unregulated and ill-informed (at best).
Mr. Dunning, I'd like you to meet Mr. Kruger. Mr Kruger is running with Mr. Vorhees for President on the Republican ticket.
Well played, sir.
I can't take credit for the Kruger Vorhees ticket. That goes to Beau of the 5th Column and one of his ever changing T-shirts. (That I can't always read all of).
Actually, I think they DO know they’re being played. But in their minds, they are in on the joke of owning the libs. I’m thinking we have made the mistake for 7 years of assuming MAGA-heads really believe this stuff, and need sympathy because of their disability of being stupid. They are willfully involved with the lying; worse, in my opinion.
I don't disagree with any of this, but I might add that because true politics involves some very complex issues and having to "get along" with others...I think some of this is being lazy. It's just so much easier to let Tucker do your thinking for you...especially when he's so adamant and vocal about being right...and everyone else being wrong.
That's a lot easier than having to read up on the issues, listen to both sides and sometimes making a decision to go against the tribe.
I should know...I was one of them.
Jeff, it would be interesting to hear what caused you to "go against the tribe". It seems like not many people actually do.
I never thought of it that way, but it makes A LOT of sense.
You may be right. All I know is that I have a number of friends of varying degrees who are rational and reasonable in other ways: well educated, good parents to their children, and successful at their jobs. Yet when the talk goes political they default immediately into the mode of "Well, I saw on Fox yesterday that ..." or "If enough of those people are saying it, what are the chances that they all are wrong?". It seems that there is a disconnect with how they approach politics and the need to raise their game in analyzing it and discussing it, compared to pretty much every other area of their lives. That's why I subscribe to the cult theory. So good and righteous in some many ways yet so warped in another -- Brainwashing 101.
It can also be labled "Hypnotism." I often respond to a "Friends" post on FB with a concise paragraph of facts deconstructing their statement and pose the question "aren't you at all interested in looking up the facts and truth of what you are proposing/parroting?" I tell them that I googled, copied and pasted this response and it took me less than a minute. I will add that in some way higher scholastic achievement and intelligence can act to reinforce and crystalize bad ideas. I give you Josh Hawley, Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz.
I’ve done similar, but try not to use words like “parroting”, it can seem like accusing them of mindlessness, inducing defensiveness. Higher goes the wall.
I think those are opportunities though.
"Fox you say...Let me tell you about what I've heard and read about in a massive lawsuit about them."
The goal wouldn't be to get them to trust 'normal' media, rather to get them from a place of trusting Fox to trusting no one. We're never going to get most of the casual fox viewers and Trump voters to think a democrat isn't worse than the devil (pronouns!), but if they at least could realize that fox is lying to them, they might be less swayed by some of the bullshit. Maybe it gets an always republican voter to stay home more often.
I would hope that what you say could come about, but I think they'd just go find their dopamine-hate fix on OANN or newsmax.
I don't know if my younger sibling started out on a fox diet, but when she wasn't getting the same rush she switched to OANN. I mistakenly said that I didn't think that was a reliable news source (my bad). She came right back at me saying it was very reliable! She had done her research!
She was also a great believer in ivermectin for Covid which had put her a weeklong hospital stay. She made her hydroxychloroquine using grapefruit peels. She won't get vaxxed.
I love her to death, but I haven't brought up the aftermath of J6, or what she thought of it. It breaks my heart that this awfulness has a hold of her. Dems aren't perfect, but jeez!
My heart goes out to you. I know how I feel about my friend, it must be so much worse when it’s your sister. At least mine both loathe Trump. (I had no idea they were lifelong Republicans until Trump. Heck, my friend was a Democrat until Trump, and that sure burns. It’s unreal the effect he’s had on people.)
So sorry to hear your issue, it's more extreme than most; just keep doing what you can ,and good luck!
I’ve had to quit saying the phrase “I did some research”, because it’s so thoroughly associated with the anti-vaxers. It’s almost like waving a red MAGA hat.
Well, there is research and then there is "research."
;)
I have a friend who is rather contrarian. Highly intelligent and educated. His contrarian nature leads him down paths less traveled (primarily because they are less traveled--and thus not part of the vast conspiracy of complacency and groupthink represented by mainstream ideas).
The fewer people that believe something the more likely he is to be attracted to it.
He will do a lot of research but it is very narrow and focused on proving his point rather than disproving it.
Two big things for him are that Shakespeare did not actually write Shakespeare (it was the Earl of Oxford) (added point of information is that he is an English teacher) and that we did not land on the moon in the late 60s and early 70s.
Right?
I see your logic. But of course logic goes only so far with people who, when confronted with facts and evidence, simply start yelling "Woke!". Evidently it is their coping mechanism.
True, but as I mentioned elsewhere along the same lines, sometimes it is the quiet observer that has their mind changed. Perhaps the spouse of that yeller who normally goes along with the political views of their domineering partner, but has a little seed of doubt planted as they watch them make a fool of themselves by dancing around simple facts.
It is all about the margins. If a few always republican voters can be swayed to stay home, and a few quiet observers change their minds, we might be saved in the short-term. We are in a time of elections of less than 100,000 voters across a nation of 330 million making up the margin of victories. It is all about a few people on the margins. 90 percent of people, you won't change their mind but you don't have to change 90 percent of minds. When my mind has been changed, it hasn't been instantly but later when I rethink a debate alone. Plant the seeds for someone to change their mind later, you might not know it ever happened but keep trying.
Agree. And that’s both reassuring and frightening. So many critical issues are decided by just a few - and those few tend to be the least informed, like the “undecided” voters that get so much attention.
In a sense though, that's only a matter of framing. An election decided by 500 votes could be swayed by changing any 501 people's minds (or 251, if the go from one team to the other). Doesn't matter whether they are die-hards, fence-sitters, or even seldom or never voters. We think in terms of the most wishy-washy of the voters in the middle, but give very little thought to the extremes (yes, less likely to change, but might stay home) and to the vast pool of people that don't vote on any given election.
You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
I can’t disagree with what you write. The cognitive dissonance is baffling. My own foray into their social sphere showed all those good qualities you list. It would interest me to hear the opinions of psychologists and psychiatrists.
So many of our current legislators use their Ivy League educations to hone their skills at dumbed-down deception . Another example is John Kennedy of Louisiana; he does such a great imitation of a backwoods rube, I was shocked to learn of his stellar academic background.