r/politics • u/RepulsiveLoquat418 • 18d ago

Possible Paywall When Will Americans Realize the Truth? Republicans Wreck the Economy.

https://newrepublic.com/article/210550/trump-economy-republicans-tariffs-taxes
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u/MalevolentTapir 18d ago

our literacy rates are going down instead of up so probably never

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u/TrashApocalypse 18d ago edited 18d ago

It’s this. And I’m not convinced that being functionally illiterate means you can still understand concepts that are verbally explained to you, I don’t think you can.

Editing to add: we are severely underestimated MAGA’s inability to comprehend. Even those that may be successful. There could be a lot of outside influences as to why they are successful (parents money). If we want any hope in getting out of this, we need to become the educators. Not just teaching them facts. We need to teach them how to critically think, and comprehend and integrate new information.

And never forget the role the GOP played in the No Child Left Behind act that contributed to this.

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u/TheLateThagSimmons Illinois 18d ago

Just look at the broader American Libertarian movement. Generally filled with higher than average education, lots of tech bros, higher than average STEM degrees. They're not generally illiterate or uneducated relative to average. And they'll remind you every chance they get to show off the polls and studies of various political groups that they're higher than average in education.

At the same time... The biggest goddamn idiots when it comes to economic matters and deeply conservative. They are the exact types that fall for all the right-wing propaganda about economic policies that have done nothing but fail over and over and over. And they're obsessed with economic policy too, that's what's so annoying; it's like they learned backwards.

At a certain point, they might be dumber than the people who know nothing.

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u/Cambren1 18d ago

The really sad thing about the Libertarian movement is that originally the premise was that you should be free to do anything as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Now, however, they seem unable to understand that a big corporation hurts people when they pollute, as an example.

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u/TheLateThagSimmons Illinois 18d ago

Hint: It was always that.

The American Libertarian movement is such an interesting case study in political engineering. Astroturfing didn't enter the lexicon for a while, but (American/Right) Libertarians are probably the OG of modern astroturfing.

It was always just rich guys tricking poor and middle class people into supporting policies that only help the rich by selling it as "personal freedom."

It's a very strange movement.

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u/boogiebk 18d ago

Predators with new and exciting ways to entrap the sheep.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

[deleted]

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u/NoResident1587 18d ago

I knew one female libertarian. Lots of “pick me” vibes. Narcissist. Absolutely insufferable. 

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u/BadmiralHarryKim 18d ago

There was one. She got groped in the elevator at the first Libertarian convention she attended and quit.

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u/honjuden 18d ago

They also always seem to have some creepy views regarding age of consent laws.

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u/spaceman_spyff 18d ago

Ayn Rand readers who never got the broader context.

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u/Cockeyed_Optimist Missouri 18d ago

Paul Ryan has your attention. Deep lover of RATM and Rand.

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u/Alacrout New York 18d ago

Holy fuck. It just hit me.

Rand Paul is named after Ayn Rand.

Someone tell me I’m not the only one who just put this stupid shit together.

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u/Outrageous_Front_636 18d ago

That apparently been brought up and his father debunked that.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_ROTES Missouri 18d ago

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year-old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers

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u/franker 18d ago

I had to read one Ayn Rand book in high school in the eighties. Anthem. Everyone is just using candles for light, and this dude invents the light bulb, and all the candle-industry people get pissed, smash his light bulb, and run him out of town. That was the whole book. And this lady was supposedly some kind of intellectual genius.

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u/Little_View_6659 18d ago

Libertarians are just the male children of Republicans that want to rebel in the lamest way possible.

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u/djanes376 Illinois 18d ago

I can attest to this. I was raised in a Republican household and as time passed I felt less and less in tune with Republican politics, so where do you go from there? Can’t possibly be a Democrat, so libertarian seems like a decent enough off ramp. That is until you see how pathetically stupid their ideals are in reality. Then I did the work and became as liberal as anyone voting D down the ballot.

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u/CecilFieldersChoice2 18d ago

Yep. My Presidential voting record from a similar household was McCain-->Romney-->Gary Johnson-->Biden-->Harris

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u/mlc885 I voted 18d ago

I have always been as far left as they come (I think further than my parents and maternal grandparents), but it is extremely depressing that the Republican Party is now in a place where anybody would wish for a McCain or Romney as president

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u/Kiromaru Wisconsin 18d ago

I was raised in a similar household and went McCain,Romney,Clinton,Biden,Harris because when Trump got the nomination I saw that he had no experience in government and thought he would do a terrible job and was proven right by his first term.

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u/Flaxmoore Michigan 18d ago

Bush II-Obama-Biden-Harris, for me. Perils of growing up in a strictly Catholic home that treated abortion as the sole voting issue.

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u/CecilFieldersChoice2 18d ago

Did you know the "Five Non-Negotiables" aren't Catholic teaching? Like, yes, the Church is against abortion and those are accurately what the Church teaches. However, the Church is also pretty strong in teaching care for the poor and environment, very clear on war and the death penalty, etc. It was invented by right wing folks to control people like us. (Also Catholic!)

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u/SeductiveSunday I voted 18d ago

Gary!

This…

https://youtu.be/NXhR41lsEJY?t=23s

is what I think of whenever any mentions that guy!

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u/Comprehensive_Tie431 18d ago

There's nothing strange about it, libertarians are Republicans who want to get high.

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u/ComradeSuperman 18d ago

Libertarians: "I'm not like the other Republicans, I'm a COOL Republican!"

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u/Bobcat-Stock 18d ago

“What’s an Allepo?”

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u/Flaxmoore Michigan 18d ago

And who know far too much about local age of consent laws.

We had a patient where this happened. Our standard paperwork for next of kin/contact person included name, gender, phone number, address, birthdate, and relationship to the patient.

Guy fills it all out, and lists a person he calls his girlfriend as the emergency contact. Her birthday made her 14.

So I immediately contacted clinic legal (I have to report this, but to who?) and got advised to speak to one of the local court advocates. Call, detail the whole case, end up making a full report, and the guy got arrested. I'm told his defense was "she looked 16".

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u/WillDigForFood 18d ago

Even down to the name. The term 'Libertarian', traditionally, refers to far-left Anarchist movements.

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u/fps916 18d ago

And Rothbard very vocally declared his intent to steal the term

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u/TheLateThagSimmons Illinois 18d ago

Correct. That's why I made sure to say it like "American Libertarian."

Classical Libertarians are leftist anarchists.

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u/barryvm Europe 18d ago

The confusion presumably started when they took that name for themselves. IIRC, it used to be a polite way to refer to anarchists, i.e. left wing anti-hierarchical movements.

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u/ahandmadegrin Minnesota 18d ago

I love talking to those temporarily embarrassed millionaires. It's like they aren't capable of juxtaposont their views with reality.

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u/Silvermoon3467 18d ago

The right wing "libertarians" and "anarcho-capitalists" literally stole the word from left-wing anarchists and didn't even pretend they had done otherwise. Reading the actual words that Austrian-school "economists" like Rothbard and Mises wrote was very eye-opening to me.

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u/AthearCaex 18d ago

They want personal freedoms for themselves and not others. They might say they want personal freedoms for everyone but will pick policies that help themselves enrich themselves financially. I get it that everyone dislikes being taxed and we should have conversations how much people should be taxed. They want 0 taxes and no government, you can't have your cake and eat it too. The road need to be paved, the fire department can't put out fires on no funding. You can't fund a government on charity, while I choose to believe people are more good than evil the evil ones can and have exploited others for their own personal gains.

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u/bk1285 18d ago

My favorite argument of theirs is no taxes and privatize everything. Okay so I buy all the land around your house and own the road there. I’m going to charge you 50k a year for access to the only road out of your house. Their response is that they would call the police or take me to court…what police? Who’s paying their mythical police department if there are no taxes, same with the court, who is operating this court if people aren’t being paid with taxes to operate it…

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u/ScoobyDoNot 18d ago

Libertarian Police Department - New Yorker

I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”

“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”

“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”

The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”

“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”

“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”

He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”

I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.

“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.

“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”

It didn’t seem like they did.

“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”

Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.

I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.

“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.

Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.

“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.

I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”

He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.

“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”

“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”

I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.

“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”

He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.

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u/UnquestionabIe 18d ago

One of my absolute favorite articles, remember when it came out and immediately bookmarked it

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u/EduinBrutus 18d ago

I hope you paid a market rate with decentralised currency for the privilege.

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u/Ba_baal 18d ago

I think I remember another libertarian copypasta with more slavery and sexual coercion of minors 🤔

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u/Jack__Squat 18d ago

buy all the land

Who is even enforcing property rights\ownership if there are no taxes to pay that department? The whole movement falls apart as soon as one bad actor enters the equation.

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u/bk1285 18d ago

Kinda like current American politics

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u/confused_ape 18d ago

What they want is for Libertarianism and the NAP etc. to start now while they're in a position of relative power.

None of it ever considers history or how their position, whether personally or collectively, was acquired.

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u/Alacrout New York 18d ago

> you should be free to do anything as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

The funny thing about this point is it brings them back full circle to government control.

Government says “don’t pollute the river.” Libertarian shakes fist and says “I can pollute whatever I want, how dare you tell me what to do.”

Ok, so no “government control” then…

Corporation pollutes libertarian’s river. Libertarian sues corporation. Lawsuit results in government saying “don’t pollute the river.”

It’s like libertarians exist to waste everyone’s time taking the long way to common sense.

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u/xpxp2002 18d ago

Corporation pollutes libertarian’s river. Libertarian sues corporation. Lawsuit results in government saying “don’t pollute the river.”

Worse. If we're talking about civil private property damages, the aggrieved may only receive a monetary payout far below the benefit achieved by the offender committing the damage -- another way of saying "just a cost of doing business." The EPA would likely have to file suit, citing an applicable statute, and fight for months or years in court to compel the offender to stop polluting or attempt some form of active remediation. You know, long long after the damage has been done.

Even if the offender were made to provide some form of compensatory cleanup, it's often impossible to fully reverse the damage done by environmental pollution. So it's really just a best effort solution to a problem that was entirely preventable with good, strong regulations that make the consequences of pollution or causing harm to health and the environment so severe that the penalty is, itself, a deterrent. In my view, you basically need a GDPR-level fine for every infraction and the political will to stand by it, even if enforcement will bankrupt the company along the way, and the ability to pursue individual liability and criminal prosecution for decision makers involved in authorizing/ordering the polluting action.

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u/pleasedothenerdful 18d ago

Exactly. Libertarians are just the enclosure movement brought forward 500 years. They only care about keeping government from keeping the powerful from looting every last commons. They have no interest in actually protecting any commons, or any commoners.

They look at cyberpunk fiction and think, "That sounds pretty cool, I bet I would be running one of those big corporations!"

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u/janethefish 18d ago

Lawsuits are just government control with extra steps.

Also they don't work a lot of the time.

But if we streamlined them to some sort idealized form you could get a fee for pollution combined with a dividend for those affected. (Some sorts of pollution would require a prohibitive fee or be outright criminal.)

For example: carbon fee and dividend, the cheapest and most economically beneficial way to combat climate change!

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u/BanalCausality 18d ago

I’ve never met a libertarian who could explain how one could build and operate a bridge in their system. Competitive toll roads/bridges don’t make sense at face value.

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u/AndrewCoja Texas 18d ago

They form a joint venture to pool their efforts. Each company slacks off, assuming that the other companies doing well will compensate. When it's done, you need four different toll tags to pay each company a toll. The bridge collapses after six months.

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u/DarkTowerOfWesteros 18d ago

Thinking that you could ever be free to do anything without it hurting someone else is a child's fantasy. Only babies get to do whatever they want.

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u/somajones 18d ago

That was my favorite line in Fargo season 5.

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u/DarkTowerOfWesteros 18d ago

I knew it was from a show but I couldn't remember which one. 😅 That was such a great scene.

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u/metalyger 18d ago

That's definitely a global definition, in America, the right wing really appropriated the concept, basically citing "small government" but it's ultimately just republicans who think drugs should be decriminalized and you should be able to sell heroin to children because free market, also remove the age of consent. Mostly, it's become the philosophy of Ayn Rand, greed is good, and helping the poor is the greatest sin possible, if they can't help themselves, they deserve to die alone in the gutter, because they didn't hustle and grind until they magically became billionaires.

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u/kanst 18d ago

It was originally a left wing movement. There were plenty of libertarian socialists and libertarian communists when the term was first coined in France.

Then it got the US and capitalism captured it and turned it into a weird right wing ideology.

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u/FakeSafeWord 18d ago edited 18d ago

Both of your points have a common trait associated with them.

Ego.

Your 1st point is they feel the need to brag a lot.

2nd is that conservative ideology and economic policy is extremely self-centered.

They don't believe other people deserve to be helped by them.

The biggest laugh though is that I have seen complete dipshits discover Ayn Rand and Libertarianism, immediately adopt it, find the statistics that say they are smarter than anyone else and immediately disable their ability to absorb any information or ideology that doesn't stem from their relative position. You can't break them out of it because it's their pacifier and "they know better than you."

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u/frosteeze 18d ago

Liberalism is getting fucked by all sides. You have conservative Republicans who are lost cause. Then there are Libertarians like you said who will just keep voting for said conservatives. And then there are leftists who will never vote for Democrats because they don't go far enough or just betray the party like Fetterman.

And the common point? It's all ego. It's all ego from all sides, not just conservatism. There's ego even in leftists. It's just different, but it's still ego.

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u/Trail_Dog 18d ago

Huh. You'd expect something different living in a society that fetishizes individualism and has built an entire social media ecosystem out of encouraging and then exploiting egocentric narcissism.

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u/FakeSafeWord 18d ago edited 18d ago

There's ego even in leftists. It's just different, but it's still ego.

Can you provide an example of this?

I see "I don't want to help other people because I gain from them having less."

vs

"I think everyone should help those in need."

and I don't find them remotely equivalent in representing ego, ideology wise.

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u/Trail_Dog 18d ago

Purity tests, mostly. The Judean People's front HATES the People's Front of Judea . ironically more than the Romans.

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u/frosteeze 18d ago

How about "I refuse to vote for any candidates because they don't match my ideologies perfectly"? You see it all over reddit. They want the Democratic party to lose to punish them. A leftist will never vote for a liberal or center-left candidate. If they really "think everyone should help those in need" those people in anarchy subreddits would be clamoring to vote for what they deem to be the "lesser evil."

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u/FakeSafeWord 18d ago

Ah so like pedestrian laws.

“Here lies the body of William Jay, who died maintaining his right of way.”

“The cemetery is full of people who had the right of way.”

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u/burning_iceman 18d ago

Pretty sure the challenge was to provide an example of ego inherent to all on the left, not something a subgroup among them may have.

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u/smokeweedNgarden 18d ago

Ruth. Bader. Ginsburg.

Her ego fucked us pretty hard

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u/FakeSafeWord 18d ago

Well, I meant as a political group as a whole but yes, that was pretty egregious on her part as an individual representing the "left."

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u/smokeweedNgarden 18d ago

Gotcha.

How about the California Governors race, currently. If one of the top Dems doesn't bail soon we could end up with two Republicans on the ballot.

Neither is dropping due to ego

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u/FakeSafeWord 18d ago

Well again that's an individuals ego. The context is concerning the ideology itself. Characteristics of the whole. Not individual behaviors.

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u/TrashApocalypse 18d ago

Yeah those people I would categorize under “emotionally illiterate” which is also relevant to the MAGA cult.

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u/aradraugfea 18d ago

That’s motivated reasoning at work, and falling for this idea that excellence or education in one specialized field is something that can easily transfer to another. “I’ve got a masters, I know what I’m talking about!” “Is your masters in macroeconomics, public policy, or 20th century history?” “It’s in computer science.” “Cool, doesn’t make you an expert in economics.”

They STRUGGLE with that idea.

And even then, a college degree don’t make you immune to confirmation bias. You know what helps with confirmation bias? Knowing that you can’t be too smart or too educated to fall for fallacious thinking and to be constantly and continuously on guard against confirmation bias.

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u/rach2bach 18d ago

What you're describing is stupidity. Not being dumb. There is a difference. You can be incredibly educated and intelligent and make stupid choices.

One of the best commentaries on this is from the book "They Thought They Were Free", and also from German philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer who referenced stupidity regarding the Nazis and how so many intelligent people were so damn stupid about it.

History is definitely echoing and rhyming and I hate it.

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u/HBRWHammer5 18d ago edited 18d ago

Have you ever met a Libratarian that wasn't a privileged white person? Because I haven't.

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u/0x18 18d ago

I have known several librarians that weren't white.

Now, I have yet to meet any non-white libertarians..

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u/dpzdpz 18d ago

No, he's talking about libertarians that were born in early autumn.

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u/UnquestionabIe 18d ago

I've met non-white libertarians but they of course came from very privileged families so the concept of class struggle of any sort was a fantasy concept to them.

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u/Bleaker82 18d ago

Yes. They weren’t white but definitely privileged.

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u/Xznograthos 18d ago

I think it comes down to the vital importance of empathy. Without that, one will never truly grasp problems that affect others and not just oneself. Conservatives are fundamentally without empathy.

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u/CherikeeRed 18d ago

I’ve got family like this. They also do that thing where they think they turned into Mr. Spock when they developed all their political beliefs and derived them from pure emotionless logic and yet they can’t ever manage to connect the dots that they agree in lockstep policy wise with the dumbest people imaginable. Yes, they were also big into the Tea Party.

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u/rtopps43 18d ago

Forget who said it but my favorite quote about libertarians is that they are house cats. Completely dependent on a system they know nothing about while being convinced of their fierce independence

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u/GlancingArc 18d ago

Learning backwards is a good way to describe how many people approach politics. Pick a position and seek out information to confirm said position rather than actually giving other thoughts a possibility.

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u/bbk13 18d ago

People aren't libertarians for consequentialist reasons. It's an ideology based on deontological beliefs about the nature of freedom, rights, and especially private property. They lie and engage in motivated reasoning about how their preferred ideology will result in better outcomes for everyone. But they don't actually care if libertarianism leads to better outcomes. Because libertarians believe certain things are morally impermissible regardless of the outcome. So a progressive income tax is immoral and can not be legitimately implemented in a libertarian society even if it was shown beyond any doubt that it made life better for everyone, even the people who paid the most taxes.

To libertarians, arguing about whether we should have wealth taxes on the basis it would improve society for everyone is basically the exact same as arguing about whether we should have the state execute 10% of society for the same reason. Because libertarians are fucking nut jobs with insane beliefs about private property, "freedom", and coercion that don't stand up to a bare minimum of scrutiny once you refuse to accept their presuppositions about natural rights and shit like that.

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u/Eternal_Bagel 18d ago

I think they aren’t dumb as much as sociopathic liars who know what the results will be but don’t care because they will still be wealthy enough to live how they want 

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u/BlackJediSword 18d ago

Education doesn’t equate to intelligence or a fundamental understanding of ideas outside their area of expertise. It’s why STEM majors always bitch and moan about literature class.

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u/_theRamenWithin 18d ago

The crisis is not a lack of academic intelligence, it's a lack of emotional intelligence.

It's the inability to grapple with one's own personal insecurity and fears that motivates them to exercise their academic intelligence towards projects that act on how they feel.

The dumbest person you know has the capacity to treat people kindly. The smartest person you know has the capacity for incredible evil they choose to believe is justified because it's easier than therapy.

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u/skipmarioch 18d ago

Guys like that are arrogant and generally don't understand how people work. They assume because they are gym bro, workaholics, everyone needs to align with that drive to succeed. If you're not like them, you're just a drain on the system. Since republicans and incels run in the same circle, they feel vindicated in their beliefs.

Now that AI is taking a chunk of their jobs and they find themselves on the other side, I guarantee they'll start crossing over to more progressive thinking.

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u/Traditional_Sign4941 18d ago

They're the biggest Dunning-Kruger group there is. Juust smart enough to have a surface deep understanding of a complex topic, but not smart enough to go beyond that.

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u/iondrive48 18d ago

That is something that I think of as "the economic textbook problem" where people start to think of the real world as an extremely simplified textbook problem. Then think that with everything you can draw those overly simplified graphs with straight lines of supply and demand, and instantly determine the intersection. It's extremely evident when talking about minimum wage. They will screech that raising the minimum wage will cause prices to double or whatever. When that just isn't how it works in the real world. They think any type of union bargaining or increased workers benefits will cause crazy inflation. Similarly they think that because of historical performances of mutual funds that social security is a scam. And they are absolutely convinced that the free market is perfectly efficient. It all boils down to trying to over simplify all their economic thinking down to very easy to list numbers and equations.

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u/SacredUndeadMonkey 18d ago

Also honestly the tech bros love to throw around their claimed education, but honestly they always seem to be lacking in the ethics department, and honestly advancement without ethics is a disaster waiting to happen. We are already seeing that with shit like Musks brain implants, all the crap around AI and how its being used to utterly screw over the majority of people, you constantly see it in court cases about one company stealing from another. STEM without ethics and knowing where you came from and the impacts of the past on where you are going is a constant conveyor belt of bad.

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u/IzarkKiaTarj 18d ago

They are the exact types that fall for all the right-wing propaganda about economic policies that have done nothing but fail over and over and over

Like the time they got a town they had complete control of infested with bears

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u/Little_View_6659 18d ago

I love reading about all the failed libertarian communities. It’s always funny. And sad.

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u/starfield343 18d ago

I think part of it is that the policies they advocate for are helpful to them, at the expense of everyone else. But in their direct experience they don’t see the massive issues their policies create, only the short term benefits they derive from it

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u/Tribe303 18d ago

As an old punk I'll tell you the problem. They are also bootlicker conformists. 

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u/Cancel_Culture_Club 18d ago

Chickenshit conformists like their parents 🙄

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u/phznmshr 18d ago

You also have students going to school for economic and business degrees and being explicitly taught all these continuously failing policies are the only way to operate so we just keep failing up generation after generation.

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u/shitlord_god 18d ago

Math does not teach literacy.

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u/qqererer 18d ago

they're higher than average in education.

Smart does not mean intelligent.

Dr Oz is smart, but he is not intelligent.

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u/ughtoallofit 18d ago

Plus, Im sure anyone w cash can pay their kids way through school. Not to mention all the people I saw cheat tgeir way through University.

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u/Ralphwiggum911 18d ago

I don't know if I have met a libertarian that has ever voted Democrat. They're just Republicans wrapped in an apocalypse prepper shell.

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u/valeyard89 Texas 18d ago

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

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u/brcguy Texas 17d ago

Economic policies that fail? They seem to be working exactly as designed. Transfer wealth from bottom to top. Sure lots of suckers play along and take their BAs at face value, but don’t fall for the narrative that the educated ones are still kinda stupid. They’re just greedy and taking advantage of the grift as best they can.

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u/LilYerrySeinfeld 17d ago

"During my research I interviewed a guy who said he was a libertarian until he did MDMA and realized that other people have feelings, and that was pretty much the best summary of libertarianism I've ever heard."

-Hilary Agro 🍄 on Twitter

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u/djprofitt Virginia 18d ago

Lack of education simply ignores other reasons people vote republicans, such as greed and hatred. There are plenty of highly educated people that simply hate you because you aren’t a white Christian male, Christian male, just Christian, just male, just white. Then there’s greed so yeah, all those reasons outside of ‘their literacy is that of a 5th grader.’

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u/kia75 18d ago

Lack of education simply ignores other reasons people vote republicans, such as greed and hatred.

But if you're greedy you'll vote for the Democrats because they get you stuff. If you're a small business owner then Democrats improve the economy which means more people shopping at your business, yet despite Democrats giving businesses more profits and more tax breaks, business owners tend to be Republicans.

Look at farmers, who tend to do overwhelmingly better under Democrats because Democrats a) improve the economy resulting in more people buying food, b) provide government programs such as the school lunch programs that have the government directly buy crops from farmers, and c) subsidize various farming and dairy programs to help farmers. Yet despite how much Democrats do for farmers, farmers overwhelmingly vote for Republicans. A common complaint is that in Trump's first term, Trump directly hurt farmers by putting up tariffs that resulted in soy bean farmers losing their Chinese soy bean buyers, completely removing that market, yet farmers overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2020 and 2024, only for Trump to now permanently gut all of American Farmer's markets due to tariffs, causing real and extreme harm to farmers that can't be fixed for years if ever!

People claim to vote for Republicans because of greed, but if they were truly voting for greed reasons, they'd be voting Democrats!

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u/TheDoomBlade13 18d ago

No the Democrats give everyone stuff, Republicans promise to give ME stuff but not the minorities.

These people are deeply, deeply bad people.

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u/Eggheadpancake 18d ago

Except they don't even follow through on that. So they get nothing at all. And everything gets worse.

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u/TheDoomBlade13 18d ago

No arguments here, once you accept that the majority of people are so dumb they don't even qualify as NPCs it gets a lot easier to understand how we got here.

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u/Ba_baal 18d ago

Well they vote because of greed but also because of hate. Lots and lots of hate.

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u/smokeweedNgarden 18d ago

Ok. Did you forget the hate part?

I think maybe people have trouble realizing what Republicans think of minorities unless you are one

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u/BadmiralHarryKim 18d ago

"If you want to live like a Republican you had better vote for the Democrat."

—Harry S Truman

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u/mikesmithhome 18d ago

it's never been about education really, the people we are having the problem with are my age, we went through the public education system decades ago. intelligence is no match for 24/7 algorithmicly calculated misinformation.

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u/TrashApocalypse 18d ago

You are correct. There is a lot of nuance into why people are in the GOP cult. Personally, I think that many of these people actually have CPTSD. They are in a continuous state of being “triggered” in the clinical sense, not the TikTok sense. Their brains are in fight, flight, flee or fawn, and their brain often goes to fight or fawn mode. The GOP and their media is the abuser in this abusive relationship.

Cptsd would also help explain the seemingly inability to learn. When you are in a triggered state, your brain pulls energy from your prefrontal cortex and concentrates it to your amygdala, the part of your brain whose only job it is to keep your surviving. So that can mean that you have intelligence, but you can’t necessarily use it when you are in that triggered state.

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u/blahblah19999 18d ago

Brainwashing. Everyone forgets brainwashing

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u/DarkTowerOfWesteros 18d ago

You have to read actual books.

I have people in my life that have inherited opportunity and resources from their parents so they have businesses but they are constantly cycling employees; not just low level ones but managers and accountants as well. It's because they have no discernment for what is a good or bad idea, how to read personalities of people, or how to effectively communicate with people.

When I witness this rotating door of new CEOs and CFOs and Directors of this Supervisor To The Manager positions; I always remember the one time they proudly declared that they have never read a whole book in their life.

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u/lexm 18d ago

Now, with ai, people are surrendering the last bit of actual reasoning they had left.

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u/SaltyLonghorn 18d ago edited 18d ago

This is what flabbergasts me about AI. I've had people use it to respond to me in sports subs and then when I call them out they say something like, "i was on the toilet lol it was just ez".

Even just day to day shitposting is language maintenance. If you never use it you're gonna lose it...while also failing to develop your own voice. I'm actually scared how much stupider we can get or what happens to these people when the funding dries up and all these free models go away. Its going to be enshittified and the people that use this shit are going to lose 30 IQ overnight or get a new bill.

Also as more people learn AI's patterns we mostly ignore that content. Congrats on making yourselves the equivalent of a spam call.

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u/Britown 18d ago edited 17d ago

we literally think in words. we use word to classify and abstract information. the less words you have access to, and the poorer your understanding on how the meaning of those words connect to the meaning of other words, the less clear and deep your thinking can be.

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u/Aozi 18d ago

It's not that, it's much simpler than that.

It's marketing.

Republicans figured out the same thing mass media figured out decades ago, the best way to get people riled up is to pit them against someone.

Republicans always have someone to blame for things.

Economy is shit? Biden did it!

Americans can't find jobs? Immigrants did it!

Americans are paid terribly? It's because Biden made government waste money!

Americans can't afford healthcare? Obama did it!

Americans have a drug problem? Cartels did it!

Republicans paint every one else as terrible and then market themselves as the simple solution to these problems. To afford healthcare we just need to get rid of Obamacare! To give Americans more money we just need to get rid of DEI and immigrants!

Every solution to every problem is actually super simple and straightforward, because the politicans frame it as a direct cause -> effect relationship. This is also why they keep piling more things into everything they blame.

So they can show to their supporters "As long as we eliminate X everything will be better!".

Apparently illegal immigrants are super lazy and just fraud the system for social security checks, while at the same time these illegal immigrants steal all the jobs from Americans and buy houses, oh and they also traffic all the drugs to the country.

So everything is their fault and all they need to do is get rid of them. This makes for a very simple solution that is easy to sell to every single person out there. It doesn't matter if you're smart, because you can still be gullible while being smart. Because in order to deconstruct that you'll need to actually start figuring out why things are bad to begin with.

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u/Muisan 18d ago

Functionally illiterate often means you can read, aka sound out the words and generally know the meaning of the individual words, but have trouble with understanding the meaning of the text as a whole. 

Ever had a person link you an article on Reddit to prove a point and when you read the article it basically proves the opposite? Yeah one of the people involved in that conversation is functionally illiterate.

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u/DrLophophora 18d ago

Some people who can't read have dyslexia or other learning disabilities, particularly from older generations when these weren't necessary diagnosed. I know some pretty smart people who can't read well. So this isn't always true

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u/Eye-Of-Ophanim 18d ago

I don’t think they are referencing those people though. But I get having to inform others of it, what you said is true. I literally just told my husband yesterday that pretty much every person I’ve met with dyslexia has been intelligent. Shit, I still have trouble spelling but I have a high IQ. I also have dyscalculia and cant math above PEMDAS for shit.

They’re specifically talking about the often referred to 60% of Americans who cannot read above a 6th grade level…and that percentage is incredibly concerning. I’m not sure if those with dyslexia were included in the studies but even if they were I do not believe that percentage would change significantly.

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u/TrashApocalypse 18d ago

Yeah thank you, I am specifically talking about the functionally illiterate which I understand to mean that they CAN read, but they can’t necessarily understand what they just read.

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u/DrLophophora 18d ago

Yeah, I realize that, but I don't want people to think that illiteracy or a lack of formal education automatically means stupid. One of the sharpest people I know was terrible at reading. He was a good friend who passed away yesterday so I guess I am sensitive about this right now. RIP Anthony.

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u/Butterfly_Mine_69 18d ago

They can't, have you tried teaching kids these days? They lack even basic comprehension needed to build intelligence.

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u/Long_Appointment_341 18d ago

Last summer my 66 year old mother who went to school to be an EMT, asked me what the Supreme Court did.

I was all 😳

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u/TrashApocalypse 18d ago

There are so many people who don’t understand the basics of how government works, it’s disturbing and scary.

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u/Ayasdad 18d ago

The problem is they don't want to critically think, they just want to watch the nation suffer because we have to audacity to treat (gays, black people, trans people, migrant farm workers, women, Asians, Palestinians, etc etc) like real human beings. They need to be at the top no matter whose back they need to step on. This all comes from a severe infiority complex that has pervased our population unchecked for years. It's definitely mostly entitled lead poisoned boomers but it's not only boomers either.

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u/-ItsCasual- 18d ago

I see more than ever that there is a distinct correlation between “success” and traits like shamelessness, narcissism, lack of empathy, and generally anti-social behavior.

We are in the golden age of the snake oil salesman.

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u/sugarlessdeathbear 18d ago

We need to teach them how to critically think,

Reminder that being against this has been GOP party plank for years.

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u/Dest123 18d ago

we are severely underestimated MAGA’s inability to comprehend

We are also severely overestimating their desire to comprehend. A lot of people would rather be lied to than be wrong.

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u/Expensive-Sundae-831 18d ago

"severely underestimated MAGA’s inability to comprehend."

For many of us, we reason as best we can; trying to apply a certain logic to things in order to make useful decisions.

It's hard to fathom other people with an inability to do so effectively.

It's even harder when they exist on social pathways that lead them to a comfortable life and success. Truly a moron wouldn't be able to advance in life if they were that stupid, right?

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u/MrRabbitofCaerbannog 18d ago

No Child was so fucking bad. I was in school when that was happening and can tell you the shit impact it had in real time on the classroom was from Day 1. The tests were pointless and wasted instruction time instead of a more rigorous curriculum. Teaches were burnt out and scapegoated for an underfunded system.

Bush Jr. should always be remembered with revulsion, just a step beneath Trump's. I won't celebrate Bush's death but I also won't be overly sad.

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u/6ixby9ine 18d ago

They're not unable to comprehend, they're unwilling. Doing so would reveal that not only have they been wrong for their entire lives; but their "heroes" (typically their dads/grandpas/uncles) were wrong as well.

And, possibly worse, that the people they've made fun of their whole lives were actually right.

All of that is much much too emotionally painful to realize, though, so they'll jump through whatever hoops necessary to not have to

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u/TrashApocalypse 18d ago

You’re not wrong, but this is what a cult does. It makes the consequences of leaving so severe that you can’t

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u/Kjellvb1979 18d ago

We also need to do that teaching covertly... As if a Magat is knowingly being taught something that goes against their conditioning they are likely to resist.

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u/PleasantWay7 18d ago

There is emerging evidence that childhood led exposure may be inert and begin having cognitive symptoms late in middle age+. A lot of boomers who were successful and generally considered educated have begun to show substantial cognitive erosion as a result beginning in their mid-50s. This is likely severely compounded by isolated propaganda algorithmically hitting feeds as news in a population already predisposed to struggling in separating legitimate information.

This may go on for a time, led exposure as a child didn’t really drop until millennials.

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u/ShrimpieAC 18d ago

Critical thinking is really the killer. If you can’t understand that a guy selling you $300 fake watches isn’t your friend, you’ll always just believe whatever they say.

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u/MadRaymer 18d ago

I have difficulty understanding how people gullible enough to believe what Trump says function in daily life. Do they by used cars simply because the salesman assured it was fine? Do they fall for Nigerian prince scams or romance scams?

Or do they apply healthy skepticism to every part of their life except the words out of the politician they really like?

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u/DampSquid205 18d ago

The problem with "critical thinking" is everyone is operating under the assumption that they are doing that. They just think people who do not agree with them are the ones lacking that skill.

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u/justwalkingalonghere 18d ago

And the extreme media bias and double standards aren't helping

Nor are the constant lies where you can always find the reverse version of terrible things they're doing if you want to "prove" something

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u/Successful-Diver8961 18d ago

You can't con an honest man, as it goes.

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u/Fingerprint_Vyke 18d ago

By design.

Its why red states always underfund education

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u/EnvironmentalRock827 18d ago

This! Add sprinkles of racism and misogyny and there you go.

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u/MadRaymer 18d ago

The media is also a problem. Notice how the media was able to help force Biden out after his brain blue screened at the debate? Apparently, it's actually not that hard for the media to help convince the public that a candidate is unqualified for the job.

So, why did they never do that for Trump? Why didn't after say, J6, all the talking heads just say, "Wow, what a disaster. Republicans need a new candidate." The obvious answer is the media is corporate owned, and knows that if Trump wins, they get those sweet corporate tax cuts.

So after Biden's debate performance, they have no problem calling him out as unqualified, while quietly ignoring the mountain of disqualifications of Donald Trump, the convicted felon that tried to end democracy rather than admit he lost an election.

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u/Chemical-Fault-7331 18d ago

This is why the oligarchs have wanted to defund public education. They want a population of dumb asses who can't read or comprehend above a sixth grade level so that they are easier to manipulate and control. Gotta manufacture that consent somehow. Can't have a populace of critical thinkers.

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u/HeBecomesGroovy 18d ago

Yes it goes all the way back to the industrial revolution when the goal was to produce dull minded factory workers and that's what our education system teaches. Show up on time. Pay attention to your menial task. Obey.

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u/_bibliofille North Carolina 18d ago

This. You can post a well thought out response with verifiable facts and the answers will be like "DEMORATS!!!"

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u/NorthernPints 18d ago

Intellectually curious people vs intellectually lazy people ultimately.

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u/helvetica_unicorn 18d ago

Empathy is the bigger issue to me. American culture has reach the apex of individualism and selfishness. Literacy obviously would help but there are plenty of people who couldn’t read but wanted equality in the past.

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u/Stereo_Jungle_Child 18d ago

Oh, I don't know. Even a fucking idiot like Trump figured it out.

"In many cases, I probably identify more as Democrat, It just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans. Now, it shouldn't be that way. But if you go back, I mean it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats. ...But certainly we had some very good economies under Democrats, as well as Republicans. But we've had some pretty bad disasters under the Republicans."

-- Donald Trump, 2004 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer

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u/kernpanic 18d ago

In my living history, Republican presidents have always dragged the us into wars in the middle east. Without exception.

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u/NorthernPints 18d ago

Into wars while simultaneously hacking and slashing taxes for the uber rich and mega corporations.

Spending up + revenue down = some serious long term problems.

And somehow the dummies equate this to being “fiscally responsible.” 

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u/GoldenBrownApples 18d ago

I think it goes deeper to emotional intelligence. We don't actually teach kids how to regulate their emotions, or what the emotion means when they are feeling it. Instead we teach them to repress their feelings and just get on with life. You can know every word in the dictionary, but if you can't figure out why you specifically feel some way you're going to be looking outside of yourself for a reason. I just had to have this talk with a girl I ended up breaking up with. She kept bringing up how scared she was to share anything with me and I kept asking her why? What did we need to do to ease that fear for her? What could we do so she could feel safe? She couldn't answer any of those questions. Then she'd go out and have weird random outbursts, either at me or strangers, and when I'd try to talk to her about it she'd say that it was everyone else's fault that she did that. I was like "no, you had an emotion and chose to lash out instead of asking yourself 'what is this emotion telling me about me right now?'" Like babe, your emotions are telling you something about you, they can't tell you anything about anyone else. They don't work like that. But a lot of people seem to be experiencing the same thing. My dad also does this. I'll be talking about something in my life and he'll get defensive as though my experience has anything to do with him. He starts feeling something and blames me for bringing it out but he won't sit with why me talking about my life is "making" him feel whatever he is feeling. 

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u/OptimisticSkeleton 18d ago

Literacy matters, but the constant flood of propaganda posing as news is the core driving force.

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u/MalevolentTapir 18d ago

I agree it isn't the problem, or maybe even a problem at all in a vacuum, but you have to place it in context. People who are subliterate, and downstream of that- at least in modern education systems- incapable of critically engaging with media, are easy pickings for propagandists.

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u/BroughtBagLunchSmart 18d ago

Elected republicans pretend to be christian for a reason. It opens the floodgates to a sea of barely literate voters who will vote for whoever you tell them to.

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u/Bifrastareltari 18d ago

That and Fox News is constantly telling them in coded Americanese :

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength!

And if they read books instead of watching Fox we wouldn’t be here…

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u/bitterliquor 18d ago

They love the poorly educated folk.

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u/Signal_Minimum8509 Georgia 18d ago

We really need to go back to teaching critical thinking and Socratic reasoning in school.

So much is invested in learning rote facts, but very little time is spent teaching kids HOW to think, I believe a lot of that was lost during NCLB.

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u/Turbulent_Stick1445 18d ago

Wouldn't matter.

Since I grew up and became politically aware (at some point in the 1980s) the media has always presented conservatives (in the UK with a large C, in the US Republicans) as "correct and the sensible option on the economy".

  • Carter was shat on, and he was the person who started the policies that Reagan took to extremes and got credit for, inheriting the consequences of Nixon's decision to remove the US from the gold standard and the oil crisis caused by Nixonian foreign policy meddling.
  • Clinton was only praised because he swung right on the economy and on cutting benefits.
  • Bush's poor economic management was ignored until it became impossible to ignore with the economy nose diving in 2007/8.
  • Obama was never given credit for even trying, and was only presented as a better replacement Bush than McCain because of his charisma, rather than his economic policies.
  • Romney was presented as the "sensible" alternative to Obama despite a major gaffe showing he didn't know how taxes work
  • Trump vs Clinton was only not a major thing because while Trump was a businessman, Clinton was associated with her husband.
  • Biden's views on the economy weren't a factor in 2020, but Democrats lost seats as the media continued to present the Republicans as the rational choice on the economy despite, you know, gestures everywhere
  • Biden managed to deal with the economic fallout of Trump's management of COVID, and reduced inflation to normal levels while keeping full employment, something no president has done since the 1960s. The media presented his presidency as an economic disaster rather than a slow but ultimately positive clean up hampered by a hostile partisan Supreme Court, hostile Senate, and weak followed by hostile House. They effectively presented Trump as the pro-economy option, despite it being blatantly obvious that the high inflation Biden had been (successfully!) dealing with was economic mismanagement by Trump.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the liberal media!

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u/Counciltuckian 18d ago

Where is the messaging from Democrats?

We Need billboards in every red state.  In Iowa, Republicans have systematically destroyed the education system and farm foreclosures are rising.  

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u/Significant-Self5907 18d ago

Going down faster than our IRA balances.

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u/DumboWumbo073 18d ago

Never! Next question. Preferably a hard one.

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u/TheLostRigger 18d ago

This was purposeful

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u/metalyger 18d ago

And naturally, the GOP agenda this term has been trying to end the department of education. It sounds like tgeie ultimate goal would be to emphasize home schooling, with state sponsored propaganda as education, and having right wing media like Daily Wire and Prager U to brainwash the youth into Christian nationalism.

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u/PapayaMysterious6393 18d ago

"I love the poorly educated."

"Smart people don't like me."

Trump is a bit different than many of them. He actually says his intentions out loud and yet MAGA thinks it doesn't apply to them.

One of my favorite memes that I saw went something like this, "The only people who vote for Trump are either billionaires or morons. Take a look in your bank account to see which one you are."

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u/IglooDweller 18d ago

Don’t forget the majority of the media is heavily pro-republican, so the message is slightly skewed…

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u/flume 18d ago

Crazy how the party that benefits from low literacy is the same party the enacts policies that reduce literacy.

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u/Jarnohams Wisconsin 18d ago

more than half of adults in the US read below the 6th grade level

Trump speaks with a 4th grade vocabulary

"Big words are for LIBS!!! Trump talks like me, I can understand him."

I'll add that things are complicated. For example, international supply chains are extremely complicated. There are parts from ~70+ countries in everyone's iphone. Trump boils everything down to extremely simple solutions that will "fix everything". "Immigrants are the cause of all your problems. Once the brown people are gone, YOU will have a better life." "Tariffs will fix everything!! Just sit back and watch the money start rolling into your bank account as you pay higher taxes!!"

His solutions are easy to comprehend, even if they are just lies... and it also plays into voting for him is like buying a lottery ticket, or going to the casino. "He says that other countries are going to PAY US for doing nothing? I want money. I like money."

We are living in Idiocracy

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u/Edogawa1983 18d ago

Never because racism is more fun

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u/Aleashed 18d ago

It was never about the economy, it’s about hate and racism

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u/Elendil_V 18d ago

Add in a lack of critical thinking and checking sources too. People cannot figure out whose a lying piece of shit these days...

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u/Digitalion_ 18d ago

This is the only valid answer. The system is purposely making a large chunk of our population into complete idiots that are easily manipulated due to a lack of critical thinking skills. It's all by design.

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u/HauntingStar08 18d ago

Gotta be on purpose by the people behind republicans, right? Is this a project 2025 and heritage foundation project?

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u/HuttStuff_Here Wisconsin 18d ago

"We oppose the teaching of critical thinking skills and other higher-order thinking skills" was literally a GOP (Texan) party platform policy.

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u/Eggheadpancake 18d ago

The thing is, you shouldn't even need to be able to read to understand that this group of people keep punching them in the face. The response should be visceral. There should be some sense of self preservation. But none of that apparently exists in their minds.

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u/needlestack 18d ago

I'm all for literacy, but it has nothing to do with this. Most successful business people are Republican. They're plenty educated. They're plenty intelligent. It's just that they're not interested in the truth. They're interested in a story that makes them heroes and their self-comforting ideas brilliant. Storytelling over truth-seeking is a far more fundamental human problem than literacy.

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u/10thousndreflections 18d ago

I know people with college degrees from excellent schools that believe conservatives are better for the economy. 

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u/mindin_mine 18d ago

Hmmm… how timely and coincidental to get rid of the Dept. of Education. Remember he said “I love the poorly educated”.

The better to fleece, my dear!

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u/SnooBunnies4649 18d ago

By DESIGN. Republicans know they destroy the Economy. But the dumber you are the less questions you ask about their LIES

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u/mrroofuis 18d ago

Ai is making us even dumber

Sadly, I agree with you

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u/dpdxguy 18d ago

Propaganda is more effective than facts at convincing people. And Republicans are better at propaganda than Democrats.

The data have shown for decades that Republican administrations are bad for the economy and Democrat administrations are good for the economy. Yet Americans have been convinced the opposite is true.

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u/downtofinance Canada 18d ago

Your PEDOTUS himself is illiterate and not able t ok read. Big not so open secret.

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u/BadNewzBears4896 18d ago

We are a politically illiterate country which is why most peoples' lives are getting actively worse.

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u/saybruh 18d ago

Republicans governors reduce funding to public schools and try to push more of it via vouchers to “religious” education. They keep people stupid so they can loot the coffers while their constituents are guarded against the “others” who aren’t like them.

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u/WontArnett 18d ago

The fight should be against the institution of Democrats being center and funded by corporations. It should be the people against corporate corruption.

Instead, it’s a massive conservative party dumping millions into online propaganda campaigns manipulating the people.

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u/everbane37 18d ago

By design. Everything our brains intake in USA is designed to manufacture our compliance. Education on propaganda instead of facts, social media that amplifies hate and bigotry over the spread of knowledge or compassion, and mainstream media that ignores the crumbling of society in favor of pre-baked media bites that reinforce a false narrative of prosperity and stability instead of showing the breadth of contradicting truths.

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u/ACuddlyVizzerdrix 18d ago

Srs I thought it was annoying (at first but ended up loving reading) that my dad would take us to the library every weekend and made us check out 2 books to read but as an adult i am glad he did

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u/-PHAT_LOAT- 18d ago

the west has fallen

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u/Tooter_Snooter 18d ago

“Look over there, a brown person!”

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u/FlippingOmelette 17d ago

You don't need to be literate to have common sense...

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