MAGA is a zero sum cult. It's about needing to win at something when everything else isn't working anymore. It's about owning the libs, stopping "wokeism" or whatever else the right wing echo sphere tells them.
It's about grievance.
For just a few minutes these people need to feel superior to someone else because they have an axe to grind with how their life quality has declined over the years.
Trump gave them their walking papers and permission to be cruel and dismissive along with the promise they nothing bad would happen to them. They want to see others suffer for a change while they are spared.
It's easy to call these people stupid and some of them are. But mostly they are ignorant and incurious enough to fall for a snake oil salesman who tells them he will fix their misery.
They aren't policy wonks but instead just want to be able to pay their bills and stop feeling like they are always falling behind.
The American dream is gone for most of them and now the best hope is to hold down a steady income and staying healthy so they don't need to declare bankruptcy after being unable to pay their medical bills.
Just wait till they find out it was all a scam.
There are a lot of highly intelligent MAGA leaders. JD Vance is one of them. Trump is not. In general I do not think working class or non-college educated people are less smart than others.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, it looks like fascist cults are more likely to attract people who want to be lead, rather than lead themselves. They want someone to tell them the answers. They want someone to confirm their beliefs. They want someone to make their lives better, because they have lost the ability to do som themselves.
The smarter MAGA leaders exploit this vulnerability, and that leads us to where the US is now: In deep s*.
Some relevant facts:
ReplyDeletePew’s analysis of the 2024 election found that 67% of Trump voters did not have a college degree, compared with 51% of Harris voters. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/demographic-profiles-of-trump-and-harris-voters-in-2024/
One study explicitly argued that Trump’s 2016 coalition drew unusually heavily from “low-information voters.” Another found that higher “cognitive sophistication” was associated with a lower likelihood of choosing Trump. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316753944_The_Cognitive_and_Emotional_Sources_of_Trump_Support_The_Case_of_Low-Information_Voters
MAGA Republicans are also more likely than other groups to endorse political violence and conspiracies or extremist beliefs.
I do think intelligence plays into this or at least what you would call willful ignorance. His base is incurious and more likely (as you said) to want to be led by someone else who promises change. There is a chronic lack of critical thinking here that falls easily for conspiracy and cannot make sense of historical precedent. Vance is smart and tactical and devoid of moral character as is Rubio. These people just want to ride power train to get what they want.
ReplyDeleteI believe that it is now too late to save a collapse which is needed anyway if you are to rebuild properly on a new platform of more fairness