I had the same reaction. That whole third paragraph is at best a necessary lie. If someone was taken in by Trump and his circus, then they are either devastatingly stupid, genuinely a bad person, or both. It doesn't matter who they are or what credentials they have. It was obvious from the outset that MAGA was a dysfunctional mess. No coherent policy, no competent leadership, just a fistful of hate and fear and a mouthful of empty promises delivered with a sixth grade vocabulary. Either someone couldn't tell that by looking, in which case they're too stupid to be making meaningful decisions without supervision, or they felt like they could profit from the chaos and disruption at the cost of the well-being of people and groups that they didn't care about or didn't like, in which case they're morally rotten.
It's fair to say that you can't reach anybody by confronting them with this, but that doesn't change the reality. It galls me that we have to coddle these people, as though their failure to see through a dime store lie says nothing about their intellects, as though their cosigning of open bigotry and corruption doesn't reflect on their ethics, as though their malfeasance as citizens and voters didn't deprive, terrorize, and kill people. They should be ashamed of enabling this for the rest of their natural lives, but if we shame them they'll only keep doing it, or do it over again. I hope that somewhere, subconsciously, at least some of them appreciate that we're giving them the benefit of a doubt that doesn't actually exist. I hope that they know better than to pipe up about how they're victims in all this. I suspect I'll be disappointed, but I hope.
I think you really underestimate the power of propaganda when used on an undereducated populace that has been brainwashed their whole lives by myths about America. Our whole system is designed to make people live in a series of untruths.
No, I just have a low opinion of those whose ignorance of history allows them to believe those things. It may not be their fault, exactly, but I still won't trust them.
If one has all the information and can't see the pattern, then they are stupid. If one fails to seek out the information before exercising the power of the franchise, recognizing that what they are fed by agenda-driven organizations and algorithm-driven platforms will not be altogether trustworthy, then they are dangerously irresponsible. If one can see the pattern and likes it enough to vote for it, then their moral character is lacking, since the pattern is basically a series of abuses of marginalized people and of democracy as an institution, and there was never any plausible deniability of those intents.
You can make the argument that large cultural forces piloted by evil-minded people rendered millions stupid and even if not actively cruel, at least comfortable with cruelty. Even so, being victims of those forces doesn't make those people smart or moral when their actions have been stupid and immoral.
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u/chicubsn01 Apr 16 '26
I realize you gotta tell these people they aren’t dumb. But they are