Ignorance is not a compelling argument... it's the ONLY argument

I regret that I have but one brain cell to give for my country

I suppose we could devote a lot of time, energy, brain cells, and column inches to the debate over the intellectual capacity of Trump supporters. I won’t pull a Barbara Bush and “waste my beautiful mind” by trying to dive into that debate. I frankly don’t care if Trump supporters are of average IQ or are what Newt Gingrich calls “low information voters.” What I see in Trump supporters are millions of people who, whether for reasons of mass delusion or simple convenience, have chosen the intellectually and morally lazy way out.

They don’t care.

Whether or not Trump supporters are “stupid” in the traditional sense- low IQ, can’t spell “cat” if you spot them the “c” and the “a”- they’ve decided that believing conspiracy theories, wallowing in propaganda, and believing apparent lies and half-truths are perfectly acceptable political realities. They’ve decided they don’t care about the truth unless they feel Joe Biden is lying. Then it’s “Git a rope!”

The double standard and mass hypocrisy are astonishing, but they’re fed crap by the Right-wing media echo chamber that amplifies lies and propaganda over verifiable journalism. There’s no longer one truth; there’s one for each side of the political/ideological divide, with one side creating its truth on the fly depending on the needs of the moment’s dominant narrative.

That side is the one with the collective lips figurative but firmly attached to Donald Trump’s ample pasty ass.

Overall, it’s a sickening collective forfeiture of moral and intellectual agency on a scale this country has never experienced before. Mass delusion has become the coin of the realm. Because of this, the worst and most morally repugnant liar in American history has what appears to be a legitimate shot at another term in the White House.

John Pavlovitz

makes a good argument, in that it’s not about a person’s mental capacity. We’re talking about those already functioning in adult society. No one’s being asked to split atoms, recite Shakespeare backwards in old Norwegian, or interpret quadratic equations. All we’re asking of them is that they take up residence in the reality-based world. In 2020, 72 MILLION of them couldn’t be bothered to do even that much.

That number fairly boggles the imagination- 72 million people voted for a man who, while in office between January 2017 and January 2021, told north of 30,000 verifiable lies. Ponder that momentarily, and then consider the sheer volume of Donald Trump’s mendacity.

If you use the 30,000 figure (the actual number is well above that) and divide it by 1461 days, you have an average of 20.53 lies per day. So, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Donald Trump, while President, told 21 verifiable lies per day.

That’s a truly astonishing number. No parent would accept that from a child…and yet that parent might eagerly vote for a President who has done that day in and day out for FOUR YEARS.

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

There simply isn't a sufficient excuse for being an adult so sheltered from facts and so truth-deprived that you can't see Trump’s complete sociopathy and you can't discern the existential threat he and his party are to this nation.

These people aren't being asked to dig beneath some complex, brilliantly crafted ruse perpetrated by Conservative media and religious conglomerates working in concert. If you can simply read Trump’s own social media feed and not be fully disgusted to the point of vomiting, you either aren't a reasonable human being or
you are willingly choosing to engage in wild intellectual and theological gymnastics
in order to avoid a reality that makes you uncomfortable, and to intentionally avoid some really vile stuff that no one is even attempting to conceal anymore.

I’d submit that Trump supporters, the people I’ve come to refer to as MAGAnauts, aren’t reasonable human beings. They’re engaging in wild intellectual and theological gymnastics BECAUSE they’re amoral hypocrites locked in the throes of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The idea that Evangelical Christians could seriously support Agolf Shitler is a sickening bastardization of everything Christianity is supposed to stand for. Not that Evangelicals care, mind you. To their way of thinking, Jesus Christ is an immigrant-hating, anti-abortion Republican.

And if you ain’t got Jesus, you ain’t shit.

I’m fully convinced that nearly everyone still supporting Donald Trump knows he is a reprehensible human being and guilty of high crimes against this nation—but they simply can't admit to themselves or anyone else they made a mistake and so they are doubling down again and again.

They're not stupid, they’re just willing to let America die on the altar of their pride, which may be far worse.

Yes, MAGAnauts ARE reprehensible human beings. They know it, but most and worst of all, THEY DON’T CARE. They don’t care how hypocritical they appear or who might get hurt along the way.

They. Don’t. Care. As long as King Shitgibbon I ascends to the throne on 1.20.25, they don’t have a concern in the world for anyone who’s not a good, God-fearing, White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexual patriot.

And why would they? If you’re not a White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexual Patriot in a MAGA hat, they have no reason to give a fuck about you. In their eyes, you don’t exist.

Being an adult means being responsible for ferreting out what is real and what isn't, and for making good decisions with the available information. This is what we demand from our children isn't it? We only let their ignorance be an excuse for so long, and then we remove that option because we expect them to be smarter than that at some point. And if we realize that they are smart enough to know better, then it becomes an indictment of their character.

If grown men and women aren't willing or able to sift information and choose wisely because of their media choices or their circle of friends or their mental effort, the
net result is the same: they are enabling and protecting reprehensible behavior that places people in great danger.

MAGAnauts allow themselves to do things and make decisions that most reasonable parents would punish their children for. Parents worthy of the appellation teach their children right from wrong. They teach them how to discern what’s real from what’s bullshit. They teach them how to let experience be their teacher.

MAGAnauts revel in their ignorance; they wear it as a badge of pride. They don’t care about the truth because they create their own in abundance. Why shouldn’t they? The news and information outlets they rely on do precisely that 24/7/365. Where do you think they learned it? They’re spoonfed simplistic propaganda and pablum crafted to meet the narrative of the moment, and they swallow it without question or stopping to wonder about the source.

If FoxNews creates your reality, you're going to be hateful toward lots of people. You're going to be afraid of Muslims, LGBTQ people, immigrants, people of color, refugees—and on and on and on. And if you've been on the planet for a few decades, you should have developed the critical thinking not to allow a network that brokers in fantasy and fiction to be your baseline for truth. That's a you problem.

Garbage in, garbage out.

This rejection of objective reality is precisely why so many MAGAnauts are so hateful and proudly dismissive of those who aren’t good, God-fearing, faithful White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexual Patriots. It’s why they only trust those who look, speak, think, and fear like they do. They never think outside the confines of their narrow box, so when they come across someone who does, that creates discomfort, and discomfort leads to fear and, eventually, hatred and loathing.

In a time when information is available at our fingertips and when conversation and study and exploration are limitless, I’m through excusing supposed adults for not being able to make a decision that is based in reality, simply because they're in some hateful, self-righteous, nationalistic bubble. That's their fault, not ours.

- John Pavlovitz

Critical thinking is not a trait found in abundance within the MAGAnaut community. When people think, they begin asking questions. And when people begin asking questions, the answers they get might cause them uncertainty about their carefully constructed ideological reality.

If there’s one thing MAGAnauts value, it’s their carefully constructed artificial reality where everything fits and makes sense. There are no grey areas; everything’s black and white. There are no square pegs and round holes, no unanswered questions, and no unsolvable riddles.

If The Religious Right defines for you what it means to be a Christian, your Christianity is going to look nothing like the actual teachings of Christ. It's going to be an angry, violent thing devoid of compassion and gentleness. That isn't your preacher's fault and it isn't Franklin Graham's fault and it isn't the Devil's fault. As a thinking Christian who supposedly reads the words of Jesus and reflects on them regularly—you should see through this sham in a hot minute and soundly reject it.

One of the worst aspects of MAGA philosophy is that MAGAnauts claim to be Christians while living Christ-like lives in no shape, manner, or form. They profess to be faithful Christians even as they hold fast to none of the values Jesus taught in the Gospel. Their Christianity is ornamental, a club that provides them the righteousness with which to bludgeon those they consider to be “less than”- gays, Liberals, Blacks, Jews, atheists, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

It’s a VERY long list.

If the brazen, unapologetic racism and xenophobia and misogyny on display right now is too subtle for your sensibilities, and if Nazis marching through town squares and supremacist politicians and election interference fall beneath your radar, you either intentionally have your head in the sand or it isn't on straight to begin with—and either is a problem.

Many of my white Evangelical friends supporting Trump aren't as much stupid or unaware as they are cowardly. They held their noses in 2016, voted in anger or haste or error—and then quickly got out of the politics business, choosing to escape the consequences of their decision on other people. So FoxNews and the Conservative Christian Church have become convenient places of sanctuary for people with privilege wanting to hide from the results of their vote.

Pavlovitz is spot on, of course. Nazis marching through town squares might seem a jarring visual to contemplate, but it’s precisely the sort of thing MAGAnauts would greet with open arms. If they could be guaranteed that Donald Trump could rule as a dictator, it would be MAGA Nation’s collective wet dream. Tens of millions would soil themselves in rapturous joy—no more elections and no more uncertainty. There would be only Trump, 24/7/365.

Evangelicals and MAGAnauts from sea to shining sea, especially those who were at the Capitol on January 6, would feel that the ridicule and “persecution” they’ve endured will have been worth it.

What ridicule, a reasonable, rational person may ask? Hey, we come down on the Left side of the ideological Maginot Line. How could we possibly understand, right?

Yeah, there’s a word for that. Hypocrisy leaps immediately to mind, but there are a few other, less polite ones that I could throw in as well.

In terms of IQ, some MAGAnauts may not be by-the-numbers stupid, at least not in the traditional sense. They choose to live on the intellectually vacant side, which is even worse. I can almost understand those who actually ARE intellectually deficient, of which there’s no shortage on Trump’s side. All you need to do is listen to Jordan Klepper bravely taking on MAGAnauts at Trump rallies across the country to understand how truly, profoundly intellectually bereft some of these knuckle-draggers are.

It would be hilarious and very entertaining if this were all fictional, say, along the lines of Idiocracy. Sadly, these people are serious, and they have no problem sharing their intellectual and moral deficiencies with Klepper. Yeah, they’re stupid and not particular about who knows it.

There’s no justification for giving people like this the benefit of the doubt. These chuckleheads WANT to destroy America. They want to turn America into their personal playground. They want to trash a quarter-millennia of democracy and turn America into AmeriKKKa, complete with the world’s second-worst person (the worst, of course, being Vladimir Putin) as its dictator for life.

They see nothing at all wrong with hatred, bigotry, racism, and bullying because Donald Trump will do it for their benefit.

This sad vision is not the America in which I imagined I would have the privilege of growing old. I’d hoped that by the time I was pushing retirement age, this country would’ve grown and matured into a place that belonged to all of us, regardless of who we are, where we’re from, which god we worship (or don’t), or what the color of our skin happens to be.

Man, I can be SO naive sometimes.

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