…is, “You don’t know you are in the Dunning-Kruger Club.”
Its eternal Lina Lamont cry? “What’s the big idea? Am I dumb or something?”
Dominated by pity for themselves only exceeded by cruelty to their victims, they endlessly complain that their critics are mean to them and say they are stupid, never pausing to consider that this assessment is heroic charity.
Adam-Troy Castro tries to break it down for the Cult:
An anguished question from a Trump supporter: ‘Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?’
THE SERIOUS ANSWER: Here’s what the majority of anti-Trump voters honestly feel about Trump supporters en masse:
That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought “Fine.” (https://www.usatoday.com/…/trump-university…/502387002/)
That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, “Okay.” (https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hotel-paid-millions…)
That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, “No problem.” (https://abcnews.go.com/…/list-trumps-accusers…/story…)
That when he made up stories about seeing Muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, “Not an issue.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/donald-trumps…/)
That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn’t care, you exclaimed, “He sure knows me.” (https://www.usatoday.com/…/president-donald…/4073405002/)
That when you heard him relating a story of an elderly guest of his country club, an 80-year old man, who fell off a stage and hit his head, to Trump replied: “‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting,’ and I turned away. I couldn’t—you know, he was right in front of me, and I turned away. I didn’t want to touch him. He was bleeding all over the place. And I felt terrible, because it was a beautiful white marble floor, and now it had changed color. Became very red.” You said, “That’s cool!” (https://www.gq.com/story/donald-trump-howard-stern-story)
That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw. (https://www.nbcnews.com/…/donald-trump-criticized-after…)
That when you heard him brag that he doesn’t read books, you said, “Well, who has time?” (https://www.theatlantic.com/…/americas-first…/549794/)
That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, “That makes sense.” (https://www.usatoday.com/…/what-trump-has…/1501321001/)
That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, “Yes!” (https://www.latimes.com/…/la-na-trump-campaign-protests…)
That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man’s coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, “What a great guy!” (https://www.independent.co.uk/…/donald-trump-orders…)
That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, “Thumbs up!” (https://www.theatlantic.com/…/why-cant-trump…/567320/)
That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, “That’s the way I want my President to be.” (https://www.huffpost.com/…/trump-insult-foreign…)
That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they’re supposed to be regulating and you have said, “What a genius!” (https://www.politico.com/…/138-trump-policy-changes…)
That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, and you have said, “That’s smart!” (https://www.usnews.com/…/how-is-donald-trump-profiting…)
That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was in the middle of water and you have said, “That makes sense.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/the-very-big-ocean…/)
That you have seen him start fights with every country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, “falling in love” with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, “That’s statesmanship!” (https://www.cnn.com/…/donald-trump-dictators…/index.html)
That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1500 kids, has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas – he explains that they’re just “animals” – and you say, “Well, OK then.” (https://www.nbcnews.com/…/more-5-400-children-split…)
That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise. (https://www.americanprogress.org/…/confronting-cost…/)
What you don’t get, Trump supporters, is that our succumbing to frustration and shaking our heads, thinking of you as stupid, may very well be wrong and unhelpful, but it’s also…hear me…charitable.
Because if you’re NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.
Me, I think the evidence is now overwhelming that, though charity believeth all things, prudence forces the conclusion, at this late date, that they are indeed evil. Whether they are also stupid depends on the MAGA cultist, I reckon. Some of them, especially the leaders, are cunning predators. But the thing about predators is that they don’t have to be smart. They just have to be smarter than their prey. Or, .they have to be served weakened or injured prey betrayed by stupid Cult members who think they will receive a reward for being toadies.
The Stupid will receive no such reward:
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14 Responses
Millions of Trump voters will lose their Medicaid coverage. Many will not be diagnosed or treated for various illnesses. Some will likely die. They thought that he will take care of them. He will only take care of the billionaires.
Are Trump voters stupid? Well yes, many of them are. Did they actually think that he would help them? That’s rather naive.
Some Trump voters reluctantly voted for him, as the classic “lesser of two evils.” I can understand that to a degree. But many of them regarded him as some sort of messiah. I recall people referring to him as “God’s annointed.” How smart is that?
It’s not a political movement. It’s a cult. Simple as that.
The one slight bit of optimism I hold: I see no Trump successor waiting in the wings. Once Trump is out of office … ? Who knows? Is there another lunatic in the wing waiting to don the purple robes? If so, then the great American Experiment is likely over. Or will the nation finally come to its senses and correct this horrible, horrible mistake?
But the one thing this country really needs right now politically is the one thing we are sorely lacking: Leadership in the opposition. If you’re looking for a great picture of directionless, spineless, self-obsessed and clueless power brokers, look no farther than the leadership of the Democratic Party.
The Democrats are hopeless. The minimum wage has not moved in 15 years. Rather than work to help the working poor of this nation, the Democrats focus on nonsense like transgender bathrooms. Rather than try to address health care for people without health insurance, they obsess on things like how many left handed lesbians of color are included on a Federal Contract.
The voters see this lack of seriousness and the result are MAGA and Trump. All of the race pimping alienated the white working class. All of the obsequious attention to radical feminists alienated men. It’s time to focus on economic issues and stop the race pimping and other nonsense.
The minimum wage has gone up several times in recent years in most blue states and cities, so…no. Democrats have never focused on transgender bathrooms. They generally let people use the bathroom they identify with or in some cases install single unisex bathroom options.
No, it’s MAGA that has obsessed 24/7 over a demographic of the population that makes up just over one half or 1% of the country. Democrats did create health care for people. It would have been far better if we had created a real health care system like all of the civilized world has, but Republicans made sure that didn’t happen. That would be “communist”, you see. And there wouldn’t be lots of CEOs making $50 million bonuses each year for letting people die.
The MAGA ‘focus on the economy” is systematically destroying it. We are facing a massive recession coupled with massive inflation due to tariff policies of the sort that led to the Great Depression 90 years ago. Some of the trading relationships Trump is destroying, such as Brazil had been buying hundreds of billions of dollars more than they sold to us. We’re paying 50% more on coffee overnight because Trump’s first priority is trying to browbeat Brazil because it rightly convicted its former dictator and insurrecitonist. This country is flat on its back economically in part because Trump wants to do a fellow criminal and dictator a personal favor.
I am as disgusted by the Democratic Party as anyone. But it is the right that is constantly obsessed with those issues.
The very same week that India lurched toward a future with China and Russia and North Korea, what was the Trump Administration doing? Gathering names of high school transgender athletes. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/maine-principals-fight-doj-request-student-names-transgender-125487699
I never really bought in to the notion that Trump was a Russian asset. Not because I don’t think he is doing a great job at that. The man is simply too feckless and stupid.
I think it is painfully obvious he is a Russian asset.
Grifting death cult…
Oh really? How many MAGAs live in your house, Mark? Because I have a couple. And I can tell you that, while they aren’t exactly not racist and transphobic, they are not as outright evil as you describe. They did not look at all those things listed above and say “Great!” “Thumbs up!” “What a genius!” They just think they never happened.
The news sources they think they can trust are telling them that all those things are fake news, leftist propaganda, Trump Derangement Syndrome from people who irrationally, passionately hate not just Trump, not just Republicans in general, but everyone even slightly to the right of Karl Marx.
And there are innumerable leftists out there who jump with glee at the chance to tell them they’re right: We do hate you, you’re irredeemable deplorables and nothing you do will ever be good enough and nothing you say will ever be worth engaging with, so we’re all just waiting for you to die.
People can be victims and perpetrators at the same time, and there’s no clearer illustration of this than MAGA. You’d think this would be obvious considering how often you refer to MAGA as a cult (which it is) and its leaders as grifters (which they are). Who are the cult members? Who’s being grifted?
But yeah, sure, leopards, faces. Haha.
I also hate the callousness of that phrase and how it’s used and abused by the (supporters of) Democrats. There are no redeeming values in this, especially when the side employing this cruel mockery is the same one that calls for compassion.
No, it’s the gleeful mockery expressed by: “We’re in the right, we’re allowed to laugh at you and your failures because you’re idiots and you deserve it.”
It’s EXACTLY the same as MAGA mockery of victims of the Trump administration.
This moves us back to the first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club: Just as one doesn’t realize they’re part of the D-K club, they also don’t realize they’re employing the very tactics that they accuse their opponents of using.
This is part of what I referred to recently as the barbarization of civilization. We’re moving back to entertainment by hate-motivated cruelty for pure shock value.
But to be fair, if one looks under the surface and understands the Republican platform, takes heed of all the words literally said by Republicans, they can’t be surprised that their single issue vote is burdened with much more than they bargained for.
The three biggest errors of every single issue voter are:
1. Assuming that the candidate gives as much weight to that single issue as the voter does. That once the single issue is resolved, the candidate will not have enough time and energy to other issues that may be detrimental to the voter.
2. Mistaking platform similarities for sympathy. If the voter is an immigrant with a precarious immigration status, but votes for Trump because of what he promised to do with regards to illegal immigrant criminals, the voter will mistakenly assume that by sharing this key similarity, the candidate also sympathizes with voter on other issues and shares their convictions.
3. Downplaying the excess for hyperbole. If Trump says he’s going to round up all the immigrants, the voter will mistakenly assume that he couldn’t have meant that literally, and that what he’s actually going to do is arrest all the *illegal* immigrant *criminals*, won’t he? And when it turns out that the candidate literally does what he literally said, the voter is honestly surprised because how could it be otherwise? It’s illogical, it’s inhumane, it even goes against the economy which is what they were supposed to be all about!?
Though I disagree with Ed Feser on many things, this article on the Charlie Kirk murder is worth pondering:
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2025/09/thucydides-times-and-ours.html
I’m going to be talking about platforms, I’ll use this notation: A — pro “A”, a — against “A”.
Suppose Trump’s platform is ABCxyz (pro A-C, against x-z)
A rational ABCxyz voter will vote Trump. If equal weights are assigned to all issues, they will also vote Trump even if they’re ABCXYz or Abcxyz.
A voter will vote Trump if they’re a true single issue voter (A—–).
But if you use media to manipulate people properly, you can look for demographics to convince to your cause by blowing some issues out of proportion. If you assign undue weight to A and a majority is convicted of being A, then they will vote Trump even if they’re AbcXYZ.
The Democrats don’t seem to get it. They’re campaigning against Trump’s points, argue against them, and don’t realize they’re wasting their energy and are being duped.
The trick is to convince AbcXYZ voters to vote Trump even if he will destroy their livelihood.
Hell, with the right propagandists, they can convince -bcXYZ voters to vote Trump by getting them to focus on A-a and convince them that it’s the most important issue faced by the nation.
How do they do it? Simple. People believed what the media was feeding them. Nobody really wanted to listen to Trump’s incoherent rambling. This is his tactic. He will talk all his platform points, but obfuscate them so much that nobody will actually listen to it all.
Then propagandists take his talking points and present only them in their “news”, discussion panels, podcasts, whatever, ignoring everything else.
They will play only the relevant bits of the speeches and will know exactly which ones to avoid.
Trump clearly said what he planned to do. People didn’t believe him, they believed the media that didn’t tell the whole story.
Let’s take the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Did Trump say he’s going to support Ukraine against Russia? No, but that’s what the media twisted the speeches to.
He clearly said Russia has a valid cause, that Putin is a great man, that Ukraine needs to cede territory. But he also said that he knows who caused the war, that he will force that wrong side to concede, that the war needs a peaceful resolution. that he knows how to end this war, that he’s going to end it in X days after becoming president.
Every rational person knows that the invasion is lawless, that Russia needs to withdraw from Ukraine, including Crimea and Donbass and pay reparations, that Ukraine is in the right. Giving Russia any benefit of the doubt is simply staggeringly wrong.
So if a rational person only hears those bits about “peaceful resolution”, “knows what needs to be done”, “will end this war” and “knows who’s in the wrong”, they will assume he means that Russia needs to end this war and withdraw.
But if they listened to all that he said about the war, they will realize that he’s staggeringly wrong about the war and will do anything to achieve the exact opposite.
Fox news will show pictures of Ukraine being bombed, people being killed, forced away from their homes, abducted, etc., will say that Russia is causing this and will play bits by Trump that it’s Biden’s fault, that the war would never happen if he was president*, that that he will end this war and the presenters will say that Trump will end Ukraine’s suffering.
All other external and internal issues be damned, this is the issue all need to focus on.
So you take an abcXYZ- voter, add that U-u issue about supporting Ukraine and turn them into an abcXYZU voter, effectively ——U voter, and convince them that Trump is also U, and that his opposition is u, and they will vote for Trump, even when in reality he’s ABCxyzu, being a complete antithesis of his voters, whose only fault was believing the lies that the entertainment disguised as news fed them.
And a clear Godwin at the end: If Goebbels had access to Fox News, we’d all be speaking German now.
Trump sensed that many people were angry. They felt bamboozled by the “establishment.” He was able to divert their anger from those who actually caused their problems, such as CEO’s and billionaires and direct it towards groups that cannot fight back, such as immigrants, gays, transgenders, etc. transgenders are less than 1% of the population but if you listen to Republicans, they are the cause of most of our problems.
Transgenders are a bright and shinny object intended to distract the yokels while the billionaires pick our pockets.
There was war in my family group chat yesterday. I wrote this the day after the murder:
***I for one am happy I didn’t know who Charlie Kirk was until yesterday. When I googled “was Charlie Kirk a racist?”–I was provided with more than I needed of nauseating quotes. At the tender age of 31, he clearly had a tap root into the rage machine which is tearing our country apart. Knowing that he was part of this rage culture, and profiting from it, I can only hope that he took out a hefty life insurance policy to provide for his wife and children. I will not say, “May God rest his soul” because rest is not what your deserve when you have fomented hatred on this earth. May God have mercy on his poor soul and may he attain peace when his period of mourning for what he has done is over. ***
My oldest son was happy about what I said, as was his wife. The second basically called me a trouble maker. My daughter posted the clip about Kirk saying that innocent people must die to defend the right to bear arms. A couple of her brothers accused her of being happy about it. My fourth son was all over the map and backed some conspiracy theories about Israel and the Epstein files. My fifth yelled at me about gun rights and the little girl seeing her father die. His protestant wife stayed very quiet. (He said, “Google can provide racist quotes from Jesus Christ too!”) My sixth son (who started the whole war at 6am when he asked us all to pray for Charlie Kirk’s soul )says his Republican friend believes he might also be murdered soon. My seventh kid grumbled at me quietly about “stirring the pot”, and not believing fake quotes taken out of context. My eight kid said, “he was a racist, misogynist” and wondered why he was being lionized.
Kid #2 and #5 later came back to me and apologized for being hot headed.
Also: When it was revealed on his tax returns that Trump had paid little or no taxes, you replied, “That’s a smart man!”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-tax-returns-released-house-committee-years-legal-battles-rcna62408