Two Brands of Dumbness

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Clarissa

December 13, 2016

Some Republican called Dana Rohrbacher is arguing on TV that Russians are right in bombing hospitals in Aleppo because they defeated Hitler and are entitled.

Some nameless Democrat is responding with the equally maddening “Russians need to understand that there won’t be peace in Syria until.” The Republican is simply repeating the new party line that the KGB is writing for them. But I’m angry about the idiocy of their opponents who think that all that’s needed is to explain things to people because everybody is dumb and needs enlightenment. The possibility that Russians understand everything perfectly well and have zero interest in peace doesn’t visit their one-dimensional brains.

This is the greatest problem of leftists everywhere. They believe that everybody is exactly the same and wants exactly the same things that magically coincide with those these very leftists want. And if somebody doesn’t act in accordance with what leftists want that can only be because they are uninformed and need to be explained how things really are and what their interests really consist of.

We are caught between two brands of blind dumbness.

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11 responses to “Two Brands of Dumbness ”

Shakti

December 13, 2016

The framing is so blind and so dumb that anyone who strays outside of it doesn’t get invited on and only gets invited on once.

Americans tend not to have theory of the mind when it comes to international politics.

Shocking, I know. I avoid television because yelling at curses at people is not good.

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Z

December 13, 2016

There is that, and there is also having information. If you read the news, the ACA is uniformly good for the poor and the formerly uninsured. If you know any of the said people, you may know that for some, paying the penalty for not insuring yourself, and then paying out of pocket for medical expenses, is less expensive than joining the ACA and/or is the only way to get the MD choice you may literally need.
I know Trump voters who are anti ACA but who would support single payer. I also know Trump voters who oppose single payer because they do not believe anyone should ever get anything for “free.” And I know many Democrats like me, who aren’t in ACA because we are insured through our jobs, who have no idea that there are people for whom ACA as currently set up is truly disadvantageous. (Yes, they should realize that on balance it is still better than nothing, but there is so much that so many of us should realize.)

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1. Clarissa
  
  December 13, 2016
  
  Have you seen Trump’s cabinet? All I can say, is fuck them all from here to the moon. A club of criminal freaks.
  
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  1. Z
    
    December 13, 2016
    
    Yes. But most Trump voters I know don’t understand these things due to limited literacy skills and also because of being one-issue voters — need for oilfield jobs, it is the only game in town.
    
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2. Shakti
  
  December 13, 2016
  
  It’s not lack of information which boggles. It’s that people have ample information flowing into their skulls which they choose to ignore.
  
  This Trump voter didn’t think Trump was serious about repealing her health insurance
  
  Look at the framing. This is a woman and her husband who depend on the ACA literally to stay alive (Her husband needs a liver transplant). They own a furniture store and they get subsidies for their ACA insurance, which she loves. She says they voted for Trump because they thought he would/will vaguely help the coal industry in which many of their local customers work — which makes sense, kind of.
  But she doesn’t seem to recognize she made this tradeoff between a vague multiplier effect of coal trickling down to her business versus their health insurance and is shocked, shocked! that she will probably lose her health insurance. She doesn’t seem to think “Oh I and my husband will lose this insurance but we’ll make it up with the increased money the coal miners will be able to spend at our store”. She never says this! Now it’s not just Trump, it was the entire Republican primary field and party and they’ve been trying to repeal and replace Obamacare for years. If she cared enough to watch a debate, any debate, she didn’t pick up a newspaper/listen to the radio/watch Fox News/go to a website in seven years? She’s such a fan of Trump she ignores what’s on his official campaign website?
  She should just admit she values other things than her husband not dying from being unable to afford a liver transplant instead of feigning incredulity. If she really is that stupid, maybe that’s why her business doesn’t make enough money to afford pre ACA healthcare for herself and her family, not the lack of coal workers buying dinettes at Christmastime. “He seems to be a businessman!” Lady: your business isn’t his business, in scale or type. She didn’t need to have Mother Jones pumped into her eyeballs to understand this.
  
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  1. Z
    
    December 13, 2016
    
    Well I guess you are right. And almost no black women voted Trump and very few black men, so they were not deluded. But I think every person who voted for Trump did it for a simple reason: thinking they had something to gain personally and imagining they had nothing to lose personally, and being willing to vote for a white supremacist type. Many people here believe they will start getting rich on January 21st. Raises will come, the unemployed will be hired at six figures, and so on. With these jobs they will be insured, and will not need the ACA.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      December 13, 2016
      
      It will be interesting to see what lies they tell themselves when this bounty will not materialize and instead they’ll lose the little they have now.
      
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      1. Z
        
        December 13, 2016
        
        Oh, they will say it is Obama’s fault. They’ll start torching black neighborhoods, things like this.
        
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  2. Clarissa
    
    December 13, 2016
    
    Democracy would be grand if it weren’t for voters. They tend to be just this shade of dense.
    
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Tal Hartsfeld

December 14, 2016

Nobody ever represents themselves individually.
Each person, it seems, “has to” be part of some faction or demographic.
Their “identity” is whatever affiliation they choose.

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1. Clarissa
  
  December 14, 2016
  “Nobody ever represents themselves individually.”
  
  Let’s not generalize. I hate identities and represent myself individually. It’s working great for me.
  
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