There are nutbags in all walks of life. My construction worker nephew is very similar. Can I then say that construction workers tend to be conspiracy theorists? He’s also full on maga.
Does that affect me taking my smoker of a Ford F150 to go shoot elk in the face and talking shit about dem immigrants taking the tax money from white folks? No? Then I don’t give an F.
It seems to me the people with the power to actually do something to rein in Trump only need to be smart enough to see which way the wind is blowing and go with the blow. “Self” comes first and if that requires being an absolute liar and hypocrite, so be it. That’s easy. I can only hope that the pendulum swings back in my lifetime and does so with a vengeance.
I believe George W. did a degree in history.
One problem with Trump supporters is distinguishing between those who literally profit from the BS they put out and those who are pulled into it. The former have no reason to change.
It takes a very special kind of stable genius to bankrupt a casino, which is virtually a license to make money. I would like to know who took Trump’s exams at Penn. I know it is possible to get into Penn by making a donation. I have a cousin who did that. His father made a $10K donation in the early 50s and my cousin was admitted.
Democrats need to keep bringing this up. The right wing media is in a bind about this now. Trump fans have no idea why eggs are so expensive. It’s getting harder to blame Biden. But their media can’t admit that it’s because of bird flu because that involves health. And they are never going to talk about public health. Keep reminding Trumpers that they need an answer to this question.
Apparently, it didn’t take even that.
This may explain how Trump got into Penn’s Wharton School
President Trump has frequently highlighted his attendance at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance as evidence of his first-rate intellect, but on Monday, the Post reported that he got into Wharton with a little help from his friends — or, rather, his older brother’s friend.
In 1966, Fred Trump Jr. called his close friend James Nolan, then working in Penn’s admission office, the Post reports:
“He called me and said, ‘You remember my brother Donald?’ Which I didn’t,” Nolan, 81, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “He said: ‘He’s at Fordham and he would like to transfer to Wharton. Will you interview him?’ I was happy to do that.” Soon, Donald Trump arrived at Penn for the interview, accompanied by his father, Fred Trump Sr., who sought to “ingratiate” himself, Nolan said. [The Washington Post]
Nolan said he was the only admissions official to talk to Trump and he gave him a rating, but the final decision rested with his boss, and “it was not very difficult” to get into Wharton in 1966, easily higher than 50 percent if you were transferring from another school. “I certainly was not struck by any sense that I’m sitting before a genius,” he told the Post. “Certainly not a super genius.” Former Wharton classmates say Trump was a middling student.
I do recall there being studies shown that engineers are more prone to extremism in general, if not conspiracy theories generally. The theory I’ve heard as to why is that it’s a field where somebody can be very intelligent and highly educated while avoiding addressing scientific facts that might challenge their beliefs.
I would like to see a cite for this. I’d like to know if true and more prone to extremism compared to …? I worked in residential apartment construction (CM side) for a while and the trades tended to be filled with guys with “interesting” ideas. I’m mostly out of that (construction is still tangential to my job but I’m at a much higher level) but I now work with engineers and I don’t see those same traits.
Trump’s advisers, cabinet picks and house politicians are not any more ignorant or uneducated than their predecessors under other Presidents.
They’re greedier, more desperately sycophantic and corrupt, yes - but not really dumber, unless you count critical thinking skills.
One article on the issue; you can google for others.
Analysing data on 284 jihadis from across the Muslim world, Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog found that 69% had been to university – which, if borne out generally, suggests al-Qaida is better educated than the British workforce. And 44% went into engineering, with Islamic studies a distant second at 19%. Put another way, engineers in Muslim countries were between three and four times more likely to become violent extremists than other graduates.
Gambetta and Hertog point to a huge US survey in which nearly half of engineering students described themselves as both rightwing and religious – a higher proportion than any other faculty.
Some quotes from the article.
Not to mention that his grades were poor enough that he prohibited the school from releasing them.
Interesting. I looked up those authors and they have a book on the topic as well. Here is a snippet of a review:
That is specifically about Muslim extremists.
I guess I should watch my coworkers, and myself, more closely to for the right-wing extremists.
I don’t see any mention of conspiracy theorists though in searches.
My father was a professor in the late 60s & early 70s (retiring in the 1990s). He would never give me a yes or no answer, but others of his colleagues told me that yes, in fact, they gave Ds or D-s to students who actually earned Fs back then, and extra work to students who needed to inflate a D to a C-, because no one wanted to be the professor who gave the grade that sent a kid to Vietnam because he lost his college deferment.
Now, I realize that Trump had bone spurs, or whatever, but his professors didn’t necessarily know that-- unless someone mentioned it, I don’t think a professor would know who had a student deferment, who was the only son of a widow, who was missing a toe, whatever. I doubt Trump went around bragging about being Dx’d back then.
He was too busy fighting his own personal war, trying to avoid VD.
With Bush they called it a “Gentleman’s C”; the sons of rich families don’t get failing grades no matter how badly they do.
For Trump though anything but an A would be enough to get him to hide or lie about it, his ego would demand it.
This was definitely true. The trouble was that giving an F to that student who deserved to fail meant consigning someone else to Viet Nam. It was the main reason I left the US.
I believe this is a ‘baptist and bootlegger’ situation.
Some are true believers, others ally with them.
To profit from their ways.