I would compare it to things that people sincerely believe even though there is no proof, like religion, astrology, crystal energy, and conspiracy theories. Many people who believe in things like that are successful and accomplished people. They are not stupid people. Yet, for whatever reason, they strongly hold onto those beliefs as if they were their bedrock foundation and cannot be swayed from them.
I have a similar experience with those in my family, although I am surprised at how smart some think he is. When I hear him speak, I don’t hear intelligence. At all.
Some for me too. However, the extent to which they are fully bubbled up is disturbing. They’re literally unaware, for instance, that ICE is trampling the 4th amendment and refuse to believe it. I know this is an issue on the left as well, but I for one make a point to know what has people exercised across the spectrum, and there have been times I learned about something going on from someplace like Breitbart that was getting little or no coverage elsewhere. I’m proud of that, frankly.
I feel like I’m missing a step, here.
I thought we all just figured that the Speaker is simply lying. That he’d like to change the subject by default, by making clear that there’s no point in asking him follow-up questions because you just now got the only answer he’s going to give on that subject: you got his false claim that he doesn’t know what you’re talking about, and, well, now we can talk about something else. Oh, he of course does know what you’re talking about, but he said otherwise; the end.
If it’s so in his case, then why figure the people you talk with are any different?
Because I know them personally, and I don’t think they’re lying. Were they lying, they’d be supporting stuff that goes directly against what appears to be their core beliefs. For example, one guy is the biggest pro-union guy I know, but when I asked him how he squares that with Trump’s well-known history of fucking over working people, he claimed he’d never heard of such a thing. Either he’s lying, and his support for unions has been a lie all along, or he’s really just that ignorant.
My mom has a lot going on in her life. Her own health problems, deaths in the family, home renovation, car issues, etc. When I ask her about things in the news, she says she hasn’t been following, or she’s tired of all the hatred and drama. I believe that’s true, although if she did watch the news it would just be Fox anyway. She has no idea what’s happening.
Not to hijack, but I think the thing in play here is that we’ve essentially got two realities set up in our nation. One, the actual reality, is the one we’re all in, where the mainstream media are and the rest of the world is.
The other is the GOP-sphere, and the people living in it are living in a world where all the news and information is carefully curated and highly politicized, and outside sources are demonized as “Fake news” or horribly slanted toward liberal viewpoints. And what makes it into the GOP-sphere is always spun to support this reality and support their goals.
So when an old woman who is in the GOP-sphere hears about January 6, all they are told is that it was a peaceful protest, and the stuff we saw on CNN was AI, or tricky camera angles, or whatever, because the liberals aren’t telling you the truth. And they believe it, because they’re so conditioned to distrust other information sources.
It’s not so much that they’re all idiots, or they’re all deranged, or whatever. It’s far more that what they’ve been groomed to believe and what they’re being told is diametrically opposite to what the rest of us have seen.
As someone smart once told me about rational decision making - “If someone really believes the aliens are listening in, wearing a tin-foil hat isn’t a dumb or crazy decision.” Meaning that the issue isn’t the thinking and the choice to wear the tin-foil hat, but rather that the problem is in believing that the aliens are listening in the first place. I feel like something very similar is going on in the GOP-sphere; they’re all acting rationally and even intelligently on the information they’re fed. The problem is that they’re not getting good information, and for whatever reason, they’re insufficiently skeptical of what they’re being told.
That’s why I’ve amended Stupid’s forever but ignorance can be fixed to add except when it’s deliberate.
I think I’ve mentioned this before but DesertRoomie has a part-time job handling out samples at CostCo. Last February when Trump was mad at Columbia for turning back one of his prisoner planes she was offering Kirkland brand 100% Columbian Coffee. Usually she just does her job but when a woman wearing a blinged MAGA hat took a cup she couldn’t resist a dig.
“Better stock up. The price will be rising soon.”
“Huh? Why would it do that?”
“Because Trump’s put a 25% tariff on Columbian imports. Next week it’s jumping to 50%.”
“What’s a tariff?”
“It’s a tax paid by the importer on imported goods. If Costco is paying six bucks a can wholesale that means they’ll be paying nine instead and they’re not going to eat that.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” and she strutted off.
In February the coffee was $12 a can. It’s now $18. So you suppose Ms Bling Hat remembers the conversation?
She’s on some other forum right now, telling people how Costco raised the price of coffee just to hurt Trump. “I know because a Costco employee told me about it!”
So depressing
I think wealthy people vote Republican to keep lower taxes. I think racists vote because Trump is screwing brown people. I think some folks vote that way because they believe Democrats will take away firearms. I think they all make up some reason to keep folks from knowing the real reason they voted for Trump.
Well, you did choose an interesting way to frame the question. I am still going to vote for the more conservative candidate in many cases but I couldn’t vote for Trump in 2024 for a variety of reasons. I can share with you anecdotes about my own decision making and I can share with you anecdotes about people who are rabid Trump supporters. However, I don’t know how much value anonymous anecdotes hold.
If you’re voting for those candidates that enable Trump (i.e. any Republican) then you are a Trump supporter, you’re just too embarrassed to admit it.
I would make the comparison to religion. If there was a situation where the winning candidate set the religion for the country, people would frequently vote for the candidate with the same religion as them regardless of the characteristics of the person. So if a Christian and a Jew were running in a country where the state religion would be set by the winning candidate, the Christians would likely vote for the Christian candidate and the Jews for the Jewish candidate because they want their religion to be the state religion. The candidate themselves may not matter. I think that’s what happens with a lot of Republicans who vote for Trump. They want the Republican “religion” to be the state religion, so they vote for the Republican candidate. They may not like Trump as a person and what he does, but voting for him is the only way to have the country be a Republican country.
Another way to think about it is to ask yourself what you’d do if right before the election, you found out that the Democratic candidate had committed massive fraud. Say it was Obama vs Romney. For instance, Obama had taken massive payoffs while a Senator. The proof was with video, audio, witnesses, bank records, etc. What would you do on election day? Would you vote for Obama regardless to have the country be run with Democratic policies? Or would you vote for Romney or a 3rd party candidate, which means the country would have more Republican policies.