How do you fight willful stupidity?

[Moostache]

I legitimately am curious about what effective strategies people have used, because I am at a total loss...

Start with this tidbit from the Tangerine Menace:

“Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!). Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”

Ignoring for a minute that this sounds EXACTLY like the bullshit Crypto-bros use to pump and dump their meme-coins and fleece people out of literally every cent that they "earn"...it is essentially nonaccountable bullshit. 'Stupid' without actual context for what a 'good' or 'smart' decision would have been and most importantly either DATA or a HYPOTHESIS for WHY that is a true statement is meaningless tripe that stupid people resort to when they think it makes them sound eriudite.

I don't think its necessary to go chapter and verse on why those who scream about the 'weakness' of others are invariably the actual weakest people in a given debate or area. Trump is the classic bully in every sense. Bluster and Bloviating and never really tough or smart or even intellectually curious.

I thought of this in context of a man my father dines with at his care facility. My father is suffering from progresive dementia and the normal ravages of age beyond 80 years old, but he is a lifelong democrat - raised in a family of oil refinery workers that survived the Depression, fought in WWII and worshipped FDR alongside the pope and Jesus. His dining companion would give Archie Bunker a run for the bigot crown if such an abomination existed. He can't wait to talk about how 'THEY"/"The Democrats" are all about taking HIS money to give it to "THEM"/"EVERYBODY".

This man is a walking and talking infomercial for Fox News and the Right Wing radio sewer, but NOTHING can dissaude him from this belief that Trump = good, Democrats = bad and taxes are stealing HIS to give to THEM. I tried calmly reasoning with him regarding the folly of privatizing Social Security (which HE uses = despite his fluctuating boasts of between $4M and $8M depending on the day or story). Pointing out that expenses and the need to turn a profit (privatization) necessitate a loss of benefits and decreases in services by simple MATH, he remains convinced that "the other" is taking his retirement money. He then gets angry when I simply pointed out that HE himself said that his net worth in Decemeber (* under Biden) was HIGHER than it is today (* AFTER Trump has crashed the market and started trade wars without doing anything else).

I tried for 45 minutes to explain to this man that public policies and programs are not the demon he has been led to see them as...that places like the FDA (his food and medicines' safety), the CDC and NIH ( the source of much research for treatments to the ailments he HAS yet is being treated for with their results) and the vaccines that he insists are changing people's DNA. Even when I explained to him that I have spent my entire life in Biochemical and Microbiological research and manufacturing and that mRNA is NOT changing the DNA of ANYONE...he would not be moved and ended up just leaving in a snit...

When experts are "bad"...
When "truth" has "versions"...
When crime is patriotism and patriotism is crime...

We are living in a dictatorship of ignorance and being led by imbeciles and craven lunatics.
May god have mercy on us all...

[Irish_Dem]

1. It is willful stupidity and criminal ignorance.

Any way we slice it, we are looking at sociopaths.
People who think breaking the law is fine, and hatred is their middle name.
No empathy. No concern that their country is being destroyed.

[Moostache]

2. I agree wholeheartedly on the so-called leadership in charge...

I mean to reach those at the bottom of the pyramid, the ones that are totally and almost mantra-like in their conviction that any and every social program is "the Gummint" and they are "all stealing from me to give to THEM (whoever 'them' is at the moment)...

The leaders of this are irredeemable pieces of shit...but if there is no hope for converting the dupes that love and support them no matter what and in spite of ALL evidence to the contrary, what do we do?

After WWII, large populations were "de-nazified". Are we going to do "demagating" or is it even possible for those who desperately want to believe it to their own deaths if necessary?

I am legitmately concerned that it is neither possible nor worth the effort at times and that is scary as hell...

[Irish_Dem]

4. The bottom feeders are also sociopaths in some ways.

They are either outright sociopaths or admire sociopaths.
Or abject pathetic cowards.

They can no longer pretend ignorance.
Like the Germans who lived next to the concentration camps
with 24/7 smoke spewing out across town with flakes of skin and bones.
The people knew exactly what was going on.

American bottom feeders are in the same position now.
If they pretend ignorance they are just as culpable for the destruction of
our country.

[617Blue]

3. Going completely dark on MAGA family and ex friends works for me.

They'll either figure it out on their own or they won't. Nothing I say will change them. In fact engaging with them only reinforces their worldview.

[maxsolomon]

5. Bless you for trying.

The short answer is that you can't change their minds with facts. They'll double down; too much ego is involved in refusing to admit fault. They might change their tune after their ox is gored, but likely not - they'll find an excuse.

This movie was enlightening: https://www.thebrainwashingofmydad.com/ The saddest part was that it was only his progressing dementia that allowed his family to deprogram him - by turning his radio to NPR.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. "Brainwashing" is of course the relevant term here. Once it has been accepted by the brainwashee for decades ...

there is little that can undo it.

[maxsolomon]

7. Liberals and Dems stood by while the RW built their Mediascape

It's been decades heading this direction. NPR isn't the bulwark we all imagine; it's going to get all its funding cut.