The default way that rank and file Democrats think of MAGA voters is that they are “stupid,” by which they mean low IQ. While it is true that MAGA voters are typically poorly educated (Trump: “I love the poorly educated”) (2/3 of MAGA voters are NOT college educated, while half of Democratic voters are college educated), that does not make them stupid. And they feel disrespected, not without cause, by their better educated sisters and brothers. Intelligence may correlate with education but history is replete with brilliant minds of little formal education and foolish PhDs. In addition,
my own definition of stupidity is stupid by choice (“don’t bother me with facts, my mind is already made up”), not by low IQ. And stupid by choice (let’s call it “operational stupidity”) is much more pernicious than stupid by low IQ. The clinical word that describes this kind of lazy and stubborn stupidity is “confirmation bias” (“I will only listen to news sources that support my own beliefs”). But confirmation bias is not exclusive to MAGA voters. A MAGA voter listens to Truth Social and Fox News, but a liberal voter listens to MSNBC and late night talk TV. Indeed, confirmation bias seems to be universal among humans. So, maybe we are all kinda stupid, apparently no one likes admitting he was wrong! Or likes to THINK, rather than react without thought!
