You can fit in socially or professionally w/o having to be in full ideological alignment all the way. You go along to to get along especially in an industry so heavily dependent on personal relationships.
Too much evidence against this
How many PhDs (albeit not civil engineers) bought into all those 9/11 conspiracy theories?
If anything, intelligence in one field often acts as a blinder, potentially leading one far astray in areas outside their expertise while also providing too much personal pride to admit error or ignorance
You know of at least one now.
Semper Fi
I’m not convinced.
I mean, sure, it’s a big world and doubtless you can find examples of such people.
I think most such supporters of Trump (intelligent) are cynically cashing in by aligning with that side of the political spectrum. We saw this in some of the discovery during the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News. There were emails sent internally talking about some of the crazy going on in support of Trump but it didn’t change their outward message.
I think if you dump 100 random Trumpers and 100 random non-Trumpers in separate buckets and put them on a scale the stupid will distinctly tip in favor of the Trumpers.
They’re certainly louder about it.
That’s one of the things about intelligence. If you know you’re going to sound like a raging racist/sexist/whatever and you are reasonably intelligent, you are probably going to both wrap your beliefs in some fluffier language and generally not be a aggressively belligerent to all and sundry
That’s rather the premise of the thread. There’s plenty of otherwise intelligent people who are Trump supporters and into some bizarre theories but it comes as a surprise because they aren’t brandishing assault weapons publicly, aren’t being openly hateful, and generally behave like civilized people. He won more votes this last election than all but one person in US history.
It’s something we see on this board all the time. Otherwise intelligent people who buy into JFK conspiracy theories, 9/11 conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories of all stripes. They’re not all deliberately trolling. Mere intelligence does not inoculate one from nonsensical or even harmful beliefs
My buddy, in so many ways he’s the smartest guy I know. He told me his IQ once, and though I don’t remember the exact number, it was ridiculously high. He’s not voting for Trump, but RFK. I can’t argue with him sometimes because I lack the energy. We mostly avoid politics.
On the other side of the coin, I’m an idiot and a Leftist.
Let’s not forget that Gammer was in “An America Carol” back in 2008.
Inoculation is probably too strong a word but I would say there tends to be less conservative views in communities where rational evidence-based beliefs are emphasized, like academia and the tech industry (the other whole “reality has a liberal bias” thing, coined by Stephen Colbert IIRC). Not that being part of those communities is synonymous with intelligence (or making rational unbiased decisions)
I think the rise of the libertarian movement was a reaction to that. It sold itself as a rational, evidence based form of conservatism (unlike those bible thumping irrational traditional conservatives). The wholesale embrace of Trump by all those libertarians like Kelsey Grammer (but not @Atamasama, much credit to them) shows that for sham it was.
I knew a very liberal, lefty guy who was a full on 9/11 conspiracy theorist. In a very gentle, respectful way - he’d try proselytizing his friends, but quickly back off and agree to disagree if they pushed back on/were uncomfortable with the topic. But man he had an entire shelf of 9/11 conspiracy publications. Only a Master’s degree, but he was essentially a PhD-level researcher who published regularly and was and is very respected in his rather esoteric field.
Intelligence is only a first line of defense against nonsense and is very, very easily overridden by biases and emotional resonance.
That’s an assertion, not evidence. It’s deceptively easy (as well as intellectually lazy) to just portray people who disagree with you as ignorant or stupid instead of just coming from different values that skews their view of the world. And frankly, there are a lot of really stupid self-identified liberals, too; people who just mindlessly repeat talking points of those who they are aligned with without understanding or thinking about the practicality of implementing them. Stupidity is not a political spectrum.
Fair enough, and I’m sure there are more (although Farrell was only in for two years, so clearly not a ‘lifer’) but I’d say that military veterans tend to skew rightward in general, and Marines particularly so just from an institutional perspective, and even when it is contrary to interests. I knew a lot of Vietnam veterans who were bitter as hell about how they were treated by the government, and hated Nixon with a passion, but were die-hard Reagan fans and thought that the only mistake that GHW Bush made with Iraq was not deposing Saddam Hussain.
Regardless, it is also easier than most people want to acknowledge to change political views. Riggle might have been super-liberal during his time at The Daily Show but then veered hard-right later due to any number of life experiences; death of a friend or family member by opioids, a bad divorce, adverse legal judgement, the pandemic, anti-vax propaganda, et cetera. Steve Bannon was reportedly politically moderate and mostly disinterested during his days as an investment banker and executive producer in the film industry, and at one point was an acting director at Biosphere 2 while it was doing research on the effects of industrial pollution and climate change. He only turned into an alt-right goon after working with Andrew Breitbart and Paul Schweizer.
Stranger
What tipped you off?
Funny thing is, the rest of what you wrote is an assertion.
Though this is quirk of the post-Covid political spectrum. Before covid RFK’s style of anti-vax batshaitery was absolutely associated with the fringe far left (not the flag waving anarcho-communist arm, but the hippy naturopath granola-eating arm). During covid there was a cynical decision by the GOP to co-opt those anti-vax beliefs for political purposes (a decision that killed 10s of thousands of GOP supporters) and basically make them part of the GOP platform.
It will hopefully come back to bite the GOP as the numbers are apparently showing that his independent run is likely to take more voters from Trump than from Biden.
The reason why intelligent people fall for that stuff is because its easy for them to think, well the conventional wisdom is this thing, but I’m smarter than most people which is why I know the conventional wisdom is wrong. The moon landings were fake, 9/11 was an inside job, vaccines are secretly mutating people, and the 2020 election was stolen. I know those things and other people are too dumb to believe them.
Also, they’ll talk themselves into all kinds of crazy BS. Because while they’re smart, when they’re telling themselves something, it’s coming from a smart person.
I told the magician Penn Jillette about the ice borers. “Smart people learn to believe things that are counterintuitive,” he said. “Black holes, string theory, germs, trips to the moon, radio waves—they’ve had practice believing crazy s–t.” Penn was right, of course.
Yes, but my friend isn’t on the left and was conspiratorial about vaccines, 911, the Clintons, before the pandemic. Just clarifying that.
Ah ok. That community of right wing vaguely new-age batshaitery has always been there (though a minority) it was covid that caused the GOP to adopt it as a mainstream policy platform.
It’s also why some of the more surprising artists coming out as a MAGA, never actually “changed sides” IMO. There tends to be an assumption that if you are a weird, but talented, artist with fringe anti-establishment political beliefs (eg Kanje) your kooky our there political beliefs are left wing. But that is not necessarily the case.
Edit: I actually thought MIA had come out as maga, based on social media, she hasn’t she’s anti-vax and anti-5g but still solidly on the left wing side of that kooky political spectrum
So (somewhat) in defense of libertarians I’d definitely consider him one of the “high profile libertarians” you’d hear about in the Obama years and he has definitely not drunk the maga KoolAid:
He stated in 2008 that he “always” votes Libertarian,[45] and endorsed Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson for President in 2012[48][49][50] and 2016.[51] However, he participated in vote swapping in 2016 by voting for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the swing state of Nevada, in exchange for “10 or 11” of his friends promising to vote for Johnson in blue states like California and New York.[52]
In 2020, Jillette distanced himself from aspects of libertarianism, particularly surrounding COVID-19. In an interview with Big Think, he stated, “[A] lot of the illusions that I held dear, rugged individualism, individual freedoms, are coming back to bite us in the ass.” He went on to elaborate, “[I]t seems like getting rid of the gatekeepers gave us Trump as president, and in the same breath, in the same wind, gave us not wearing masks, and maybe gave us a huge unpleasant amount of overt racism.”[53]
In the 2020 United States presidential election, Jillette endorsed Andrew Yang in the Democratic primary.[54] In an op-ed for CNN after that year’s general election, he stated that he “used to identify as Libertarian”, but voted for Joe Biden.
Amazingly, Nazis were not Grammar Nazis, as I investigated it a while ago:
I would think, as Trump and others do attack education in the US, they would also be bad Grammar Nazis.
The Skeptic community is filled with Libertarians. Michael Shermer, Penn and Teller, James Randi, Ricky Jay, etc.
Engineering is one of the more conservative-laden faculties on most campuses, and engineering students score among the smartest.
I’m not saying smart people should be conservative or libertarian. I’m saying that smart people can rationalize their way into just about anything, so there’s no ideological bias. You can find geniuses on the radical left and the libertarian right.
As for Hollywood, I listen to a podcast with Rob Long, who wrote for and was the producer of Cheers. He says Hollywood has lots of conservatives. Some of them known, most not. He says it’s not safe to out yourself as a conservative unless you are already a big star with proven money-making talent. Ask Gina Carano.
There was until recently (2016) a ‘secret society’ (not that secret anymore) of Hollywood conservatives and libertarians called the ‘Friends of Abe’ (Abe Lincoln. It’s not a Jewish group). It was started by Gary Sinise and screenwriter Lional Chetwynd. By 2012 it had 1800 members! But the membership list is a closely guarded secret to keep their careers intact. Some people who have admitted to being in the group include Kevin Sorbo, Kelsey Grammar and Jon Voight.
IMDB maintains a list of ‘out’ conservative actors. Some prominent examples:
Kurt Russell
Dean Caine
Tom Berenger
Cheryl Ladd
Andy Garcia
Paul Sorvino
Cathy Ireland
Ron Silver
George Hamilton
Drew Carey
Lorne Michaels (!!)
Sylvester Stallone
Laura Prepon
Jim Belushi
David Lynch
Tom Selleck
James Caan
Dennis Hopper
James Woods
Adam Sandler
Heather Locklear
Jim Caviziel
Clint Eastwood
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Vince Vaughan
Joe Pesci
Rip Torn
Bruce Willis
Sela Ward
Scott Baio
Jon Cryer
Jennifer Love-Hewitt
Denzel Washington
Bo Derek
Mel Gibson
BTW, that’s not a ‘MAGA’ list. I’m guessing the majority of those people are not Trump fans.
Also note that Friends of Abe folded in 2016 when Trump was elected, and I think it was because of a split between Trump supporters and non-suypporters.
This post piqued my curiosity about Ben Stein, another “smart person” actor (Yale Law valedictorian!) and well-known conservative. Seems he spoke out against Trump in 2016 but later changed his tune: