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I believe most are decent but decent doesn’t necessarily mean they’re smart or otherwise competent in their understanding of the world or competent at parsing information fairly and objectively. It also doesn’t mean they’re stable or mature emotionally.I've always thought that most of these people are decent and want the best for America, but have been terribly manipulated over decades by voices they have chosen to trust (beginning with Limbaugh). Then, as you say, this con man comes along who is willing and shameless and damaged and needy enough to cosplay everything they want him to be, and they download all their manipulated hopes and dreams on to him. This helps them ignore his profound emotional/behavioral problems, and is even quasi-religious.
I think I understand that dynamic far more than I used to, but one thing I still can't get my head around is this joy they get from the pure cruelty. I believe that the voices they trust have filled them with so much grievance and mal-information that it has created a rage in them that the rest of us (across the political spectrum) just don't grasp. The word most often used, retribution, is key. This is some kind of revenge for some kind of pain they feel has been inflicted on them. Amplified x1,000 by those voices they trust.
Yeah.I believe most are decent but decent doesn’t necessarily mean they’re smart or otherwise competent in their understanding of the world or competent at parsing information fairly and objectively. It also doesn’t mean they’re stable or mature emotionally.
I believe the die hard core have struggled with life and are lashing out at anything they perceive as hampering their success.
Some are just psychos of course.
Tissue?Trump never shuts up. He has praised dictators and said he would be a dictator for a day etc.. Trump invites fear. He now says the Jan 6 mob are patriots.
When Faith Meets Fascism
Producer Rob Reiner and director Dan Partland discuss the rise of Christian nationalism and their new film God & Country.www.thenation.com
I believe most are decent but decent doesn’t necessarily mean they’re smart or otherwise competent in their understanding of the world or competent at parsing information fairly and objectively. It also doesn’t mean they’re stable or mature emotionally.
I believe the die hard core have struggled with life and are lashing out at anything they perceive as hampering their success.
Some are just psychos of course.
I believe intelligence has degrees.Yeah.
I guess lately I've been changing a bit on the intelligence thing. I still believe that addiction to an ideology and intelligence are two different things, and that an intelligent person can fall victim to an ideology. That seems relatively easy to conclude.
But some of these folks, and their MTG/Dunning-Kruger Effect temperaments... Is it a lack of intelligence or is it the intellectual laziness that comes with falling into an ideology that provides all the thinking & answers? I'm beginning to wonder if it's more the former.
I sure as hell can't change any of this, so most of my time here is spent at least trying to understand it. It doesn't help that they're so poor at articulating their thoughts.
You hit on the word I always think about: Curiosity.I believe intelligence has degrees.
I call them “base model” people. No extras or add ons. People who’ve had very little if any personal growth since they reached adulthood.
Their growth is stunted due to a lack of intellectual curiosity and not enough emotional maturity maturity to admit that they might have been wrong in their thinking which doesn’t allow them to accept and incorporate new information.
To me that process is intelligence. Those able to readily seek out new information and incorporate it into their overall worldview will have a much broader perspective and therefore have higher functionality and better emotional fortitude.
This is just my opinion but we see evidence of this everyday with their juvenile outbursts and jr. high taunts.
It’s definitely sad and repugnant as well.It's very sad to me that they are so easily manipulated by Trump. He is not very bright and has a poor education. He's much too lazy to deep dive into any subject and far too arrogant to listen to advisors.. He doesn't even listen to his lawyers.
This is a perverse situation. Trump is as mad as the Red Queen in Through Looking glass.
Trump threw it all away. He was very we popular and charismatic.. but he couldn't shut up. He sabotaged his presidency and his reelection.
I’ve thought about that as well. Is it ability or simple laziness? There could be other factors as well like religious rigidity, potential abuse or social pressures to toe the line and not question too much. Which ever way, it has left them insecure, afraid and bitter.You hit on the word I always think about: Curiosity.
I have a term, "intellectual elasticity", that may relate to this. In other words, can a person stretch their mind to be curious, and to search out, absorb, and maintain information? I don't know if this is a function of what we think of as "intelligence", or if it is intellectual laziness. Does a lack of intelligence inhibit and restrict "intellectual elasticity"?
The TV show shills did that. Most of them would lose a physical fight to a toddler for survival.It's very sad to me that they are so easily manipulated by Trump. He is not very bright and has a poor education. He's much too lazy to deep dive into any subject and far too arrogant to listen to advisors.. He doesn't even listen to his lawyers.
This is a perverse situation. Trump is as mad as the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass.
Trump threw it all away. He was very popular and charismatic.. but he couldn't shut up. He sabotaged his presidency and his reelection.
I believe intelligence has degrees.
I call them “base model” people. No extras or add ons. People who’ve had very little if any personal growth since they reached adulthood.
Their growth is stunted due to a lack of intellectual curiosity and not enough emotional maturity to admit that they might have been wrong in their thinking which doesn’t allow them to accept and incorporate new information.
To me that process is intelligence. Those able to readily seek out new information and incorporate it into their overall worldview will have a much broader perspective and therefore have higher functionality and better emotional fortitude.
This is just my opinion but we see evidence of this everyday with their juvenile outbursts and jr. high taunts.
Now Biden is just flying The migrants in.Migration: US sees drop in illegal border crossings after ...
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Jan 7, 2024 — The actions taken by Mexico include forcing migrants off freight trains, sending deportation flights to Venezuela, and flying and busing ...
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Sure I do...I can quote MAGA folks on this board. Poor as crap.We’ve already established that you don’t know this.
Well, "decency" is always judged from ones own conviction and view onto others.I've always thought that most of these people are decent and want the best for America, but have been terribly manipulated over decades by voices they have chosen to trust (beginning with Limbaugh). Then, as you say, this con man comes along who is willing and shameless and damaged and needy enough to cosplay everything they want him to be, and they download all their manipulated hopes and dreams on to him. This helps them ignore his profound emotional/behavioral problems, and is even quasi-religious.
I think I understand that dynamic far more than I used to, but one thing I still can't get my head around is this joy they get from the pure cruelty. I believe that the voices they trust have filled them with so much grievance and mal-information that it has created a rage in them that the rest of us (across the political spectrum) just don't grasp. The word most often used, retribution, is key. This is some kind of revenge for some kind of pain they feel has been inflicted on them. Amplified x1,000 by those voices they trust.
The way he fucks himself over & over again the guy may be a machochist. He's no doubt a sadist.It's very sad to me that they are so easily manipulated by Trump. He is not very bright and has a poor education. He's much too lazy to deep dive into any subject and far too arrogant to listen to advisors.. He doesn't even listen to his lawyers.
This is a perverse situation. Trump is as mad as the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass.
Trump threw it all away. He was very popular and charismatic.. but he couldn't shut up. He sabotaged his presidency and his reelection.
It's very sad to me that they are so easily manipulated by Trump. He is not very bright and has a poor education. He's much too lazy to deep dive into any subject and far too arrogant to listen to advisors.. He doesn't even listen to his lawyers.
This is a perverse situation. Trump is as mad as the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass.
Trump threw it all away. He was very popular and charismatic.. but he couldn't shut up. He sabotaged his presidency and his reelection.
Sure I do...I can quote MAGA folks on this board. Poor as crap.
Now you're just being elitist.Then there is this:
99 Cents Only to close all 371 stores and wind down its business
The City of Commerce deep-discount retailer, for years one of the few true "dollar" stores, calls it quits after more than four decades.www.yahoo.com
Dining options for MAGA just took a serious hit.
Yep, Trump declared that in the event Joe Biden once again beats him in the election, “I think our country is going to cease to exist.” He added some additional fearmongering to the rant: “It could be the last election we ever have. I actually mean that.
Trump Claims U.S. Will 'Cease To Exist' If He's Not Reelected
"It could be the last election we ever have," the former president said. "We don’t win, I think this could be the last election we ever have. That’s where our country’s going.”
Wow, that really sounds bad. Why does Trump use so much fear-mongering Armageddon type language? What do you think?
This has been a very slow boil, and it's been building over decades. These people have grievances -- and I have agreements with them on several of them -- but their media (this began with Limbaugh many years ago) has has been amplifying this in their minds 24/7/365. This cannot be underestimated, and I don't think it is being recognized for its importance. This is not only a rage most of us will never know, but it's deep and it's not going away now that it's out.One could observe this on Jan.6th - a couple of hundred "exited" MAGA's, and just some dozen of radical religious-racist extremists (Proud Boys). However taking the MAGA propaganda and their propagated hate-stories into account - tens of thousands of MAGA's storming, ransacking and burning down the Capitol should have been expected.
Well, this is key, and it relates to my comment above. I've mentioned this many times here, my frustration that they are so poor at articulating their thoughts, particularly in real life and on the spot. This goes back to their reliance on their propaganda media. They absorb the supposed arguments from their media, but they're not able to process them and articulate them in their own words. They don't need to! So what we get are platitudes, slogans, myopia, shaky facts and personal attacks based on emotion, which is how their media provides the input.In other words if these MAGA's and their conservative allies would have learned how to "manipulate politics via peaceful means" (make use of ones intelligence) and abandon their conviction (not to challenge authority physically) since the 70'ies - the USA would have a similar society, and as such constant clashes and violent demonstrations - such as e.g. France. Major difference is that France doesn't have millions of firearms distributed amongst their population. !!!
