In Reply to: There is no debate here and no maga is going to have posted by HasBen on September 20, 2025 at 12:14:28
Incidents like what the video captured rub me the wrong way because it indicates how otherwise smart people just step right into the debate pro mode and turn what at its core is an exchange of ideas into competitive blood sport with the desire to bludgeon the other side with facts and *that* approach is what's wrong with that video. That's my point. They're not going to "win" the debate by being confrontational.
Also if we're not going to call them stupid in their faces, I think we should also not call them stupid behind their backs. And I think we can stop calling them stupid anyway because I personally don't think they are. What they are, IMO, is a group of emotionally and morally underdeveloped, immature people who are moved into open malignancy because they are perpetually resentful about the changes that took place in the country in terms of (slooooowly) becoming a more diverse and accepting country and rejecting their backwards looking view of the world.
They are hurt, emotionally immature, and morally dubious people who are constantly in a lash out mode, and so they day and do some really stupid things like all hurt, emotionally immature, and morally dubious people do. They are not stupid. They are doing and saying stupid things because they've suspended all thinking activities during their "five minutes of hate" that's been lasting for decades now.
That's kinda how I see them, I'm sure I've called them stupid on occasion as we all tend to do when I am emotionally reacting something but my view of them is not that they are suffering from a capacity for intelligence any more than the next guy.
Ignorance is a tricky one. They are generally less aware of actual facts. I think a common thread that runs through all segments of MAGA is a lack of curiosity (along with a pathological lack of empathy and few other things). Some of them are uncurious because they like to have an opinion on everything before they know anything about it (they'll parade the most naive view on something as if it's some kind of profound wisdom -- Trump is like that) and others seem to have genuinely 0 interest in learning anything new about anything at all. So yeah, they tend to not know much about anything. I would caution against treating that as an explanation: they are not MAGA because they know less, but almost like they know less because they are MAGA. The thing in them that drives to MAGA is the same thing that tells them that knowing stuff is for wimpy cucks or something.