General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: If one more person tells me I need to try to understand Trump voters or [View all]butdiduvote
(284 posts)...in the other direction.
There are different ways in which they are stupid, but in the end, they are all stupid. Some have a specific blindspot when it comes to politics and are otherwise reasonable people, but that makes them even more stupid because their stupidity is selective and willful rather than just being a pure lack of intellectual capability.
I have a friend, for instance. Very smart. Makes all A's in her college classes. Is working towards her 2nd degree. Perfectly capable of using reason in all other areas of her life. She went on a rant about how she couldn't get health insurance because Obama let her fall through the ACA cracks. I tried, calmly, to explain to her that, no, this wasn't Obama's fault. Obama wanted you to have coverage. This was the fault of your state's Republican governor who declined to expand Medicaid. Her response to me was, "Yeah, exactly! Despite all of Obama's rhetoric, Obamacare doesn't help everybody! This is why I vote conservative!" Again, I explained, if she didn't live in a state with a Republican governor who didn't care about her, she would have Medicaid coverage, and voting in more Republicans would only make the situation worse. She stopped responding. Ultimately, she just didn't want to give up her "conservatives good, liberals bad" worldview she had had her entire life. You can try reaching out to people like this until you're blue in the face, and it won't make a difference. They don't want to be reached out to. They just want to be left alone in peace to vote against their interests because it is what they've always done. It's intellectually disingenuous and, yes, stupid.