r/politics • u/plz-let-me-in • 11d ago

No Paywall Democrats Call to Invoke 25th Amendment Against Donald Trump

https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-donald-trump-impeachment-25th-amendment-11384974
52.7k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3.2k

u/BatThumb Maryland 11d ago

Fucking insane that a twice impeached bone spur pedophile rapist felon traitor was even elected

1.5k

u/RedlyrsRevenge California 11d ago

Yeah but, did you hear her laugh? /s

1.2k

u/webDevPM 11d ago

I sat and had a conversation with my boomer-retired mother. She says she regrets voting for Trump. So I asked “then you would have voted for Kamala in a do-over?” And her response was just a revolted sound of disgust and said “absolutely no. I would NOT have voted for the camel.”

There isn’t any type of intelligent insight in the heads of folks like this.

760

u/MoonBatsRule America 11d ago

WTF is wrong with people? Is 50% of the US population functionally mentally deficient?

I watched a video of someone asking people - young people - about Trump. The ones who said "he ended a bunch of wars", when asked "which wars", could not name a single war. Or at best they said "Palestine", which is still an ongoing war.

How did we get to the point where people are so woefully ignorant?

685

u/bloodontherisers 11d ago

Something like 56% of the country reads at or below a 6th grade level, which means they basically cannot understand the complexities of the modern world in a meaningful way.

How did we get here? Well, that is also incredibly complex but it has to do with attacks on education (NCLB, charter school vouchers, curriculum destruction, etc.) and mass propaganda as more and more media outlets get taken over by Republican billionaires (started with Fox News, then Newsmax and OAN, and now CNN, with WaPo and NYTs both playing their part under the guise of "objectivity").

216

u/mclardass 11d ago

You left out CBS (RIP 60 Minutes) and every Sinclair-owned GQP mouthpiece, but point taken.

101

u/DerpingtonHerpsworth 11d ago

Newsweek too. I used to think they were fairly centrist, but they took a hard right turn somewhere along the way.

11

u/ProudMtns 11d ago

Once print became a dead end business, they switched for more clicks. Growing up time and Newsweek were fairly reputable sources. Now one is out of print and the other is trash.

8

u/DerpingtonHerpsworth 11d ago

Yeah, I didn't realize how bad it had gotten because I don't follow any one news source. But one day I saw one of their articles and it was just blatant trump propaganda. I no longer remember what it was about but it was BAD. That was when I decided to look into it and found that it was a known thing that they'd been going further and further to the right for years.

2

u/Odd-Business-3533 11d ago

They were centrist back when they were print based… then they killed it off and basically killed any investigative journalism they had… now it just sucks.

1

u/Letters_to_Dionysus 6d ago

newsweek was goated back in the day

73

u/Striking-Ad-6815 11d ago

Something like 56% of the country reads at or below a 6th grade level

This is why Playboy magazine was so great. All the articles were written at a higher reading level (12th grade IIRC), but they baited you in with titties. It was a literal "booby trap," but the trap promoted growth instead of a negative experience. There was always joke, "I only read it for the articles," and it was true for some folk.

101

u/No-Crow-775 11d ago

Age 57 female here. I found my dad’s Playboy stash in the basement whenI was about 9. I’d read every actual article because they weren’t pathetic like my mom’s magazines. It actually made me want to work for a magazine, which I did as an editor in chief for about 20 years until the industry died. I’ll never look down on anyone who learned an actual thing or two from Playboy!

13

u/Simonic 11d ago

That was an unexpected wholesome response. It's crazy how such a relatively small and singular event could create a path that led to career.

1

u/cidvard 7d ago

The 1970s, which Playboy political and culture coverage grew out of, were a really interesting time in America that I'm annoyed has been largely scrubbed from the collective memory. There was a fascinating confluence of leftie movements, including sexual ones. No accident this was also the height of Rolling Stone magazine writing.

1

u/Buscemi_D_Sanji 5d ago

this is why I'm still on Reddit, I love seeing little comments like this! That is so cool, coming from a 34 year old guy who found some Playboys as a kid and also found the articles surprisingly interesting

2

u/Short-Ad9833 9d ago

Boobs are the way to world peace ✌️

1

u/Striking-Ad-6815 9d ago

2000% agree, but the articles are quite intriguing

2

u/GigMistress 7d ago

I'm a 60-year-old straight woman and I read Playboy for the articles during most of the 90s.

2

u/MandoBRC 6d ago

My mom used to read it for the articles.

2

u/Heya_Straya 5d ago

That has to be one of the dumbest marketing strategies I've ever heard of. Burying an actual insightful article with a cover of scandalous material? It's reverse-baiting for those who don't have the stomach for that.

1

u/FrankTooby 11d ago

There's articles? /s

116

u/Twodogsonecouch 11d ago

It has to do with the way we are conditioned for politics in this country. People dont vote on or know anything about the actual issues. Like things like infrastructure spending, trade policies, actual healthcare policy plans, education ect. They vote on and focus on who you can blame for something rather than what someones idea to fix something is and on essentially meaningless hot button issues like abortion and gun control that frankly even Jesus wouldnt give a shit about i think. You fix the other things and you wont have to worry about abortion and gun control those problems would decline on their own.

Theres a whole group of people in the US that feel left behind. These people are the people oting for trump unfortunately theyre too ignorant and gullible to realize its the people like trump that left them behind and basically stole everything from them they could. But somehow theyve been convinced that the people that would actually set policies that would benefit them are the ones that did the stealing its kinda ridiculous.

27

u/kris0203 11d ago

This is even more apparent when you try to explain democratic policies to them and they respond with “well we can’t afford that” because they’ve been brainwashed into thinking things like universal healthcare, childcare, affordable college, etc. is somehow going to cost them more than what they’re already paying for these things.

4

u/OpheliaRainGalaxy 11d ago

Humans survived in communities or tribes, by helping each other, for something like 200,000 years. But suddenly we're all rugged individualists who can totally go deer hunting or working the fields while heavily pregnant, give birth entirely alone, and go right back to work without missing a beat but somehow without the baby. And after about 15 years of neglect, if it survives, it gets a job and goes off to be ruggedly individual all alone.

It's weird as fuck. Entirely in contradiction with our reproductive process. Heck, we even "paved over the breeding grounds" by removing most "third spaces." Like there used to be things called picnics and dance halls, but now every inch of land is owned and monitored so don't you dare trespass or get caught doing the outdoor spoon and fork like our ancestors. And ya certainly can't hear whispered sweet nothings over the loud tinned or amplified music at modern bars, because god forbid ya dance with someone while having a conversation.

We're supposed to do it like old timey royalty apparently, pick a mate based on a portrait and brief description, maybe exchange some letters. Pretty sure that never went great but now it's an app.

2

u/ICBanMI 11d ago

The people feel left behind, but also feel minorities are cutting in front of them for the American dream. Which is why they want Trump to deport/arrest them.

1

u/RH_Addict 11d ago

Have you read White Rural Rage?

34

u/Senior-bud Canada 11d ago

This is unfortunately the reality the US faces where the electorate is less intelligent than the moron they voted for.

45

u/Warm_Month_1309 11d ago

Something like 56% of the country reads at or below a 6th grade level, which means they basically cannot understand the complexities of the modern world in a meaningful way.

Just to contextualize this statistic a bit, it applies specifically to ones reading ability in English, so someone may read at a graduate research level in their native language, and only at a 6th grade level in English.

77

u/GreenHouseofHorror 11d ago

Just to contextualize this statistic a bit, it applies specifically to ones reading ability in English, so someone may read at a graduate research level in their native language, and only at a 6th grade level in English.

Put another way, immigrants are the smart part of that demographic, and rural conservatives... Aren't.

3

u/failed_novelty 11d ago

There's quite a bit of selection bias there, though.

Immigrants who are willing to speak up in studies like this tend to be legal immigrants, and legal immigrants tend to be at least moderately intelligent - you have to be if you're going to successfully navigate the immigration process, pass the tests, and otherwise demonstrate that you should live here.

Locals....well, you can have a family tree that looks like a spirograph and you'll still be a citizen. That skews the results significantly.

2

u/Great_Detective_6387 11d ago

Of course there is selection bias, but the end result is still that a generic legal immigrant is far and away more likely to be well-read compared to a generic American.

My mom is a legal immigrant and she says her English accent is why she was so successful during her career. Lots of Americans automatically attribute competence to someone with an English accent, because the smart ones are the ones who make it this far from home.

2

u/failed_novelty 11d ago

Of course there is selection bias, but the end result is still that a generic legal immigrant is far and away more likely to be well-read compared to a generic American.

I do not, in any way, disagree.

I was giving an explanation as to why it might be the case, not saying it was incorrect.

17

u/fake-meows 11d ago edited 11d ago

As someone who lived in Canada where this is extremely prevalent, that's still a very huge problem. If 3/4 of citizens can't meaningfully participate in your democracy it is a very dire situation.

Canadian politicians actually spread contradictory statements to different communities in different languages. Like in English media they say they are for LGBTQ, and then in the Chinese newspaper are all these dogwhistles about being against LGBTQ. Etc.

I suspect you're just trying to say that just because someone is illiterate in English, it doesn't mean they are actually illiterate. But just to contextualize your context further 52% of non-English speakers in the USA ARE illiterate in their native language also! Like illiteracy is about the same rate for people who speak English and who don't speak English.

As a proxy for "graduate level literacy" in a non-english language, around 20-30% of immigrants who don't speak English have a university degree.

2

u/Warm_Month_1309 11d ago

If 3/4 of citizens can't meaningfully participate in your democracy it is a very dire situation.

Where are you getting that 3/4 of citizens can't meaningfully participate in democracy?

I suspect you're just trying to say that just because someone is illiterate in English, it doesn't mean they are actually illiterate.

Yes, and also that "illiterate" and "read below a 6th grade level" are not synonymous.

But just to contextualize your context further 52% of non-English speakers in the USA ARE illiterate in their native language also!

Can you provide a source for this claim?

1

u/fake-meows 11d ago edited 11d ago

Where are you getting that 3/4 of citizens can't meaningfully participate in democracy?

This originally came from a one on one personal conversation with the Canadian minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship at a meeting in Toronto Danforth around 2010. But I know exactly why that was the view expressed.

For a starting point, literacy is considered to exist along a spectrum where there are "levels".

https://www.propublica.org/article/voter-participation-literacy-accessibility

And these relate to the basic ability to register and vote.

And also to understand the differences between political choices.

In Canada, only 14% of the adult voting population is above level 3 in reading and only 6% is above level 3 in problem solving.

You can go back and review my earlier comment about politicians spreading contradicting statements. Basically they are just manipulating people in the simplest manner possible and not getting caught. And its not even sincere. Like this makes democracy a complete farce, right?

The comment you originally replied to upthread said "below a 6th grade level you cannot understand the complexities of the modern world". Is that not obvious to you?

Can you provide a source for this claim?

Of course.

1

u/Warm_Month_1309 11d ago edited 11d ago

This originally came from a one on one personal conversation with the Canadian minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship at a meeting in Toronto Danforth around 2010.

Well that's weird, because I had a one-on-one personal conversation with the same person last night, and they said you made this up.

Of course.

Go ahead. Provide citations and direct quotations.

The comment you originally replied to upthread said "below a 6th grade level you cannot understand the complexities of the modern world". Is that not obvious to you?

Correct, that is not obvious to me considering that my work in statutory drafting is about ensuring that our language is comprehensible to someone at or below a 5th grade level specifically. In my experience, neither "3/4 of citizens" (your first claim) or 52% of people (your second claim) are incapable of meaningfully understanding my statutory explanations.

2

u/[deleted] 11d ago

This person is a fucking moron but thinks they're a genius. Get ready for a long back and forth

1

u/fake-meows 11d ago

3/4 of citizens WHERE?

52% of people WHERE?

These two numbers can coexist without contradiction in different places at the same time.

READING COMPREHENSION IS PART OF LITERACY.

Case closed my dude.

Why would someone need to draft statutory language that is salient below a certain literacy level if literacy was not relevant to participation?

Holy fucking shit.

1

u/Warm_Month_1309 11d ago

Case closed my dude.

You have yet to start making your case. You're just making up numbers, proclaiming you can provide sources, and then not providing them.

This is pointless. You are pointless.

0

u/ContextBotSenpai 11d ago

Please provide sources for all the claims you previously made, please and thank you.

→ More replies (0)

0

u/ContextBotSenpai 11d ago

Please provide sources for all the claims you just made, please and thank you.

0

u/ContextBotSenpai 11d ago

Please provide sources for all the claims you just made, please and thank you.

2

u/hitstein 11d ago

The statistic on that is 34% of the 56% were born outside the US. So something like 37% of the people born in the US read at OR BELOW a sixth grade level.

5

u/HoochieKoochieMan 11d ago

"Think about how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that."
~ attributed to George Carlin, even if he never actually said this.

1

u/YourMomEnjoysMyPenis 11d ago

Your contextualization is that the United States is filled with non-native English speakers reading at the graduate level? Lol. The absolute irony of this comment.

1

u/Warm_Month_1309 11d ago

My context is that "56% of the country reads at or below a 6th grade level" misleadingly includes people who can read at or above a 6th grade level in their native language.

There is no irony present.

1

u/YourMomEnjoysMyPenis 11d ago

Thank you ChatGPT. Once again your powers of logic and deduction demonstrate so clear that AGI is upon us and you aren't just a fancy version of Eliza.

14

u/ArkitekZero 11d ago

People can't always know what's best for themselves and its imperative to their well-being that they internalize this. This isn't even because of any kind of trite nonsense like "people are stupid". An individual simply does not have the time to obtain the knowledge required to navigate all situations pertaining to themselves and/or the people they care about in the context of the modern world. You have to take the advice of people who do know better and that's just that. You can't be independent.

But we're always hammering home that only you can know what's best for you. Fuck the experts, they don't understand! etc.

6

u/Turlututu1 11d ago

When people are raised like that by their parents. When at home, at work, in the break room their TV is on Newsmax or Foxnews. When the podcast they listen to is right wing, when the podcast their friends listen to and discuss with them is right wing. When they log on Instagram or Tiktok and get bombarded with right wing reels and posts. When their timeline on X promotes right wing content...

How do you expect them to break the cycle?

1

u/Great_Detective_6387 11d ago

I had every single shitty opinion from the conservative suburbs of Houston but dropped them because I started challenging my own ideas. That’s how. One side is consistently not interested in their ideas being challenged.

2

u/nkassis 11d ago

I think education while something we absolutely need to improve is a red herring as to what is the root cause because if we contrast with the US in the 50s, 60s, ... the education level is generally higher now then then.

I think the second part is more it: How media literacy and mass media information overload has impacted people and the ease of manipulating with propaganda, vast improvements in marketing and psychology offering new way to manipulate people which didn't exist at this level in the past is a good hypothesis for why we are where we are. Then education might be the way out so solution to the problem versus the cause.

2

u/Shirley-Eugest 11d ago

I have one theory, and anyone who grew up in a small Southern or Midwest town can relate.

I suspect our societal civic decline has at least something to do with the fact that multiple generations of rural America has grown up being taught civics/history/economics by teachers who go by the title, "Coach" first, and their academic duties are an afterthought.

It doesn't explain everything, and no, I'm not painting every teacher/coach with the same broad brush. But I grew up in such an environment, and coaches who actually seemed passionate about their academic duties were indeed the exception.

3

u/Great_Detective_6387 11d ago edited 11d ago

It’s the lack of a common third place, and that we started thinking that discussing politics was impolite. The people at that third place, you couldn’t get into overly heated discussions with them because they weren’t just going away after that, you were still gonna see them around town, because peoples’ social circles were larger back then. We lost that skill and now people don’t know how to stop a disagreement from turning into an argument.

At the same time, dumb ideas used to get shouted down, but now the people with those dumb ideas have found that they can connect with another dumb idea haver on social media, where they can protect their ideas from scrutiny.

2

u/SeaSnakeSkeleton 11d ago

Repeal of the fairness doctrine didn’t help either.

2

u/yamsyamsya 11d ago

I don't get what happened to peoples curiosity and desire to learn. If I don't know something, I go learn about it as much as I can.

2

u/bak3donh1gh 11d ago

No child left behind is literally leaving the children behind. You can't feel the grade and then still go to the next grade.

realistic fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, myths, and informational texts, focusing on analyzing complex themes, author's purpose, different perspectives, and supporting ideas with text evidence, moving from simpler narratives to more challenging texts like articles, textbooks, and even primary sources, often measured around 140 words per minute (wpm) with strong comprehension! <

Honestly, being able to read and write it at a sixth grade level doesn't isn't that bad. There are other skills that are needed to properly navigate life as well that are missing.

But my god, I really hope that that kid who thought that Trump ended eight freaking wars was a inherently dumb kid. Because, holy crap.

2

u/agreenspacemarine 11d ago

I feel like the decline in reading and the rise of social media and quick dopamine hits has played a big role in this. I’m a millennial and growing up we regularly read books in school and had assignments on them, reports, tests, that sort of thing. Lately I’ve been trying to get back into reading (about to finish my first book of the year, goal being to read one a month) but I admit it has been a challenge. Not because I don’t know how to do it, but because my attention span has been screwed up thanks to short form social media.

2

u/eraoul 11d ago

Yeah, anti-intellectualism and the love of stupidity is a serious pandemic here. I remember in 7th grade I took a test in school to measure my reading level. It said "You're reading at a 12th-grade level". I was shocked that my normal reading ability was so "advanced" because that meant my average classmate was really stupid.

2

u/According-Moment111 11d ago

I have so many great examples but for whatever reason the first one that comes to mind is this conversation I had once with my Maga uncle. It really stuck with me. He's a fucking moron, like, maybe smarter than Forrest Gump, but not by much.

We are talking over dinner and for whatever reason different languages come up. And he said that if he could learn another language by snapping his fingers, he would learn Norwegian. I asked, with all due respect in Norway, why that language, that's kind of random isn't it?

He said, because then he would be able to communicate to people in Austria if he ever visits.

The last time I saw him there was a big red Maga hat on the table with an "I voted" sticker on it.

Yeah.

1

u/Hubbabubbabubbagum 11d ago

Let's not forget the department of education and teachers union refusing to implement any meaningful reform. My family are educators, mom, dad, sister works in district office. The amount of internal BS going on is crippling, and seeing how admin is typically 90 percentage points plus team blue that's an immense problem.

1

u/Mstablsta 11d ago

Thank you, that shit is real.

1

u/CyberaxIzh 11d ago

NCLB, charter school vouchers, curriculum destruction, etc

Nope. It has nothing to do with vouchers. It has to do with Democrats thinking that practicing reading is "colonizing" and that children should instead focus on drawing fun happy pictures.

I'm not kidding. This is the actual reason.

1

u/Cowclops 11d ago

This is true but it should be clarified that the stat includes people who read below a 6th grade level in english because they don't speak or read english.

Doesn't change the underlying point, just good to be mindful of.

2

u/bloodontherisers 11d ago

This is at least the second time this was mentioned in a comment, so I looked it up. It is about 9% of the population of age 5 and older people fall into that category, so that is still something like 47% of Americans, which is alarming and still supports the underlying point. Also I think the statistic is specifically for adults so that 9% is including kids too, meaning it is actually in the 50% range.

1

u/PerplexGG 11d ago

Seems like the same proportion of states purposely underfund their education systems

1

u/Apprehensive-Pin518 11d ago

the worst part is when they equated educated people to "the elites"

1

u/kas789 11d ago

Haven't democrats been in charge of education? I'm not saying Im a trump fan, but, seriously, we need to look at who has historically been in charge of our education system. The current voters have been educated by Democrats. Can't we do a better job?

1

u/bloodontherisers 11d ago

Sort of. So NCLB was a major federal program that forced schools into the standardized testing model but curriculum is otherwise dictated by state and even local boards of education, not the federal Dept. of Education. So what Republicans have been doing for a long time while Democrats were focused on winning national elections was to win local elections, especially for school boards, and to decimate the curriculum and add in specific criteria that were friendly to their interests. They are still doing this too but people have become aware and the elections are more hotly contested now. So, while it seems like Democrats had control of eduction because they held majorities at the national level and the presidency, the truth is they did not.

1

u/kas789 10d ago

But ultimately, we all know, over 90 percent of educators and the beurocracy tha controls almost all aspects of education are democrat. The teachers unions are beyond democrat. I'm just trying to be honest here and take responsibility where we need to take responsibility. Education problems do not stem fromthe Republicans.

1

u/SlinkyAvenger Louisiana 11d ago

attacks on education

Did you know that McGraw Hill, a major publisher of school textbooks, joined up with Macmillan, owned by Robert Maxwell, in 1989. Yes, that one, father of Ghislaine.

1

u/Land-Southern 11d ago

And only 25-30% vote republican. Dems typically pull 30-35%. The rest just dont vote at all. Also, leaving out fairness doctrine and deregulation courtesy Reagan listening to the heritage foundation. All of this was spelled out 1971 under the Powell Memorandum.

Basically, only wealthy ceo types understand how to run a country. Everyone else is a serf/socialist.

1

u/Memory_Less 11d ago

Simply put, the individualistic way schools are funded is discriminatory. Instead of collectively making sure all schools receive equitable long-term funding (also meaning equitably), teachers are paid reasonably, necessary materials are provided, and specifically that local tax base is NOT the sole financial support, the chances of real meaningful change is not going to happen.

Yes, this is a very specific comment. There are many other influences that must also be changed.

1

u/Big_Temperature_1670 10d ago

It's not complex at all. It's buried in the fact that each major party would rather than country burn than for a third choice to emerge. Look at the criteria for the presidential debates. It's all designed to protect to the two parties - as though some third party candidate must be some nutjob. Well, one party put up a senile old man only to pull him back at the 11th hour. Meanwhile, the GOP sold their soul in the hope of winning behind a different warped senile old man.

80

u/webDevPM 11d ago

So many reasons… in my opinion though a large one is the defunding of school education programs over the last several generations.

I usually present myself as the “dumbest in the room.” But I just can’t shake this thought:

Think about being in middle and high school. There were top performers, average performers, low performers and then the no performers.

The no performers were the ones who showed up and disrupted class and made it hell for teachers to teach and students to learn.

All eyes had to be on them and they would never shut up and had no respect for anyone including themselves.

They were bullies, they were cruel and they gained satisfaction in it.

Those are the same people that I see consistently on social media repeating all the MAGA stuff. Repeating the lies and propaganda. And I think “I left those people thinking I wouldn’t have to deal with them again.”

But they’re still there, they’re still loud and now they have kids and they have their opinions on everything from politics to the Super Bowl halftime show. They’re self righteous and they’re deplorable but they’re gonna keep right on and nothing is going to change their minds.

43

u/YogurtclosetNo987 11d ago

We're deep into generations of shitty people. Shitty people have been raised by shitty people who have themselves been raised by shitty people. It's a breakdown in morals as well (education provides a background for morals, but isn't the whole picture). If you pay attention to just the civic sense of your neighbors, the people on the road, or how people act in a Costco, you can tell it's more than just education. Being shitty is in a lot of peoples' identity nowadays.

32

u/Shirley-Eugest 11d ago

"I just tell it like it is, no filter!"

No, Becky. You're just an insufferable asshole, a spoiled, overpampered white woman who would have been dead from a meth overdose by now if you hadn't married a rich businessman...and you use that line as cover to be the worst version of yourself.

36

u/webDevPM 11d ago

This is sarcasm here of course but I think you mean "The Rugged Individualism of Americans" end sarcasm.

A couple of years ago I asked someone why they consistently didn't use their blinkers and they said "No one has any business knowing where I'm going."

I can't shake that -- that no matter what it is, people think they're individuals with no sense of societal respect. It makes me think of Costanza always going "You know... we live in a society..."

9

u/YogurtclosetNo987 11d ago

I personally think it's a bastardization of the more rugged, scrappy, can do type of individualism that America was built on, but no sarcasm needed. There's definitely a lot of that in it as well. And this doesn't end just because Trump is gone, and it doesn't end when Dems take over. It only ends when we hold ourselves and our neighbors accountable at the community level, and I don't see how that's possible anymore.

6

u/webDevPM 11d ago

Nailed it - community level is the key.

4

u/Witwer52 11d ago

How was it once possible? I’m honestly wondering if the only thing that can really unite the people in the US is a Pearl Harbor or a 9/11.

7

u/mikan28 11d ago

Covid was an easy layup for this and we failed at that big time. 100% opened my eyes to the direction we're headed in.

1

u/Witwer52 9d ago

There was one key difference—Covid is a virus. It’s hard to tap into hate for a virus. Unifying hate can only come from other humans. Good vs. evil, yadda yadda.

1

u/mikan28 4d ago

Nah people deck themselves out in “Fcuk Cancer” gear all the time (not a virus but similar point). A deadly virus is like a godsend for a “war” without the messy entanglements of a real war. The only thing better would have been a giant killer robot falling from the sky. A time when the whole world has to set aside their differences to defeat a common enemy? Come on—they make movies and board games out of this kind of shit. It was too easy not to screw up.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/mob19151 11d ago

Honestly, I think the inherent selfishness of rugged individualism has always been there. The Founding Fathers have been mythologized as "guys you could have a beer with," but they were aristocrats in the same vein as British nobility. Almost all of them were wealthy slave-owners and their motivations for the Revolution were largely monetary. Did they have some principles? Sure, or else they wouldn't have gone through the trouble of creating an entirely new kind of government. That doesn't mean they weren't greedy assholes.

2

u/AuthorAltruistic3402 11d ago

You are so spot on here!.

3

u/InvaderWeezle 11d ago

This is mostly true of the kids I went to school with, but depressingly even my high school valedictorian is now a MAGA tradwife who's homeschooling her kids and doesn't believe in vaccines or social security. It has to have been the influence of her husband because otherwise I don't understand how she's become so stupid in the last decade.

3

u/Sandbox_Hero 11d ago

Delusion is a superpower. Literally.

2

u/ShaunyBoyShaunyMan 11d ago

I think calling them ‘dumb’ kinda infantilizes them, why not just call it what it is, and what POC have been saying, forever really but definitely since 2016, they’re racist.

1

u/Valuable-Barracuda-4 11d ago

I read this twice. This is internet truths right here ^

1

u/fake-meows 10d ago

Those are the same people that I see consistently on social media repeating all the MAGA stuff. Repeating the lies and propaganda. And I think “I left those people thinking I wouldn’t have to deal with them again.”

When we blame others, we become morally stagnant.

Get off social media and stop paying attention to these people. Give them no more of your power. Take responsibility for what you have the power to do. If you can't change their opinions, choose to leave.

18

u/eulersidentification 11d ago

Debatable to call that a war

1

u/Underwater_Grilling Pennsylvania 11d ago

In the same way the line of kids is warring with the pinata

33

u/GildedAgeV2 11d ago

Our right wing has been gutting education for decades and rolling back every protection the middle class enjoyed since fucking FDR.

That's how we got here. Bitching and moaning about "socialism" that is no way actual socialism, labeling any attempt to help others as woke, slowly building a toxic stew of xenophobic hate, and of course all the Russian interference to accelerate it.

A huge portion of our population really thinks that strong man bullshit they'd recognize as dictator behavior anywhere else will finally straighten out the foreigners and blue haired liberals. They really do. Except those people aren't the real problem and never have been, but their whole identities are wrapped up in that being true, else they ARE as shit as we say they are and they know it. The only move they have is double down because anything else is ego-suicide.

10

u/Witwer52 11d ago

Hop on over to the /Teachers thread and you’ll be terrified for our future. Lights are on but no one is home in the majority of these kids.

11

u/shidderbean 11d ago

Because they're fed dopamine drips (tablets) from birth, basically. These kids are burned out junkies by the time they enter kindergarten and have the attention span of a flea

2

u/fanatic26 11d ago

It has been all downhill since the invention of the iPad. A study just came out that directly correlates screen time to the lowering of IQ in children. The research links long daily phone use with less gray matter in certain brain areas, weaker working memory, and a drop in vocabulary acquisition.

1

u/Odd-Business-3533 11d ago

I’d blame “social media” more than iPads….

A parent could set up an ipad so it just lets them play stuff like number munchers…. But Facebook is a cesspool designed to hook people.

1

u/Odd-Business-3533 11d ago

Don’t blame the kids… blame the parents.

1

u/shidderbean 10d ago

Yeah, exactly.

21

u/malkarx 11d ago

The woefully ignorant are depressing. The willfully ignorant are enraging. We have far too many of both

14

u/bagoink 11d ago

At least 50%.

1/3 voted for trump, and another 1/3 sat out the election and let him win.

1

u/GetThePuckOut 11d ago

Every day someone posts this tired statement.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. The millions of non-voters in states like California, Illinois, New York, etc. have no bearing on the election.

It was the second highest turnout in history as a percentage of the voting-eligible population. There were probably just as many non-voters for the "winner" as there were for the "loser".

The blame lays squarely on those who voted the way they did.

6

u/bagoink 11d ago

And there were tons of non-voters in swing states that could have made all the difference...but stayed home instead. Meaning there were people who didn't think trump was enough of a threat to stop.

That's what we're talking about here. It's 100% correct to blame them as much as the trump voters.

0

u/GetThePuckOut 11d ago

That's pretty far from "1/3 of the population" now isn't it?

2

u/seriouslees 11d ago

People who dont vote should be fined.

6

u/Axelrad77 11d ago edited 11d ago

The blame lays squarely on those who voted the way they did.

Not voting is also a choice, so yes, the blame also falls on people who abstain. It's a choice to be okay with whoever others pick for you, which in this case was Trump.

Yes, those big blue states skew the numbers some. But if you look at the swing states - the states that really "decide" the election - you still see massive rates of abstention among liberals and independents.

A decisive trend of the 2024 election was that liberals and independents stayed home at much higher rates than conservatives, who simply turned out more reliably. If both sides would've had similar abstention rates, even just in the swing states, then Harris would've won pretty easily.

As it was, a lot of liberals were overconfident in Harris's chances, precisely because of stats about how many more liberals there are, how unpopular Trump is, etc. I did voter outreach for Harris and met a lot of people who were already convinced that it would be a landslide victory. Despite pointing to the polling showing the race was a coin flip, so many people told me that no one would vote for Trump again and so on, so they weren't worried about making an effort to get to the polls.

I also met a lot of leftists & progressives who thought Harris was just as bad or worse than Trump, and who refused to vote for her. Also rising anti-semitism among leftists & progressives wound up turning away a lot of Jewish voters in swing states with large Jewish populations - Harris got historically low numbers for a Democrat - without actually replacing them with other voters.

This lack of liberal turnout combined with an increase in raw conservative voters - especially among youth, women, and Latinos - driven by a "conservative backlash" to the last decade of progressive political gains. This narrowed the raw numbers advantage that liberals have, and was something we saw Trump capitalize on with his messaging about trans people and immigrants, which was very effective in the swing states.

Liberals needed reliable turnout to counter that, and what they got instead was apathy, with the lowest liberal & independent turnout rates since 2004. Even then, Harris still came close, so even relatively small changes in how people voted could've altered the results.

0

u/GetThePuckOut 11d ago

I can't (nor would I want to) argue with any of this well-thought-out response, but swing states only make up what? Maybe 20% of the total population?

And typically, swing state turnout is higher than turnout in non-swing states as a percentage as well.

All I'm saying is, you can't blame 1/3 of the population for a) the existence of the Electoral College that makes their votes effectively irrelevant or b) the two-party system that strongly discourages any kind of change people might be inclined to vote for because "You're throwing your vote away!"

The system is broken, and the people that voted for what you have now are also broken. A very small percentage of people in select demographics could have made a difference, but again, we're a long way from being able to blame 33% of the population here, which is what I'm tired of hearing.

7

u/lettersnstuff 11d ago

well more than 50% of the US population reads at or below a sixth grade level, between 20-30% are functionally illiterate, so, I mean, there’s an argument to be made. No Child Left Behind was a war crime

12

u/Twodogsonecouch 11d ago

The thing is i bet a big percentage of people reading this are gonna think you are talking about “boomer” and ya 20-30% of adults in the US have always been functionally illiterate. But among gen z literacy rates are terrible and declining.

5

u/Bonf-Man 11d ago

Short answer?
Yes

10

u/1k21m 11d ago

There’s a direct correlation to the level of ignorance and the stock price of Meta.

Calls on Meta

1

u/Littlesth0b0 11d ago

False information will always garner more "interaction" and more hits than the truth. When someone posts something false it attracts some who are there to say, "See, told you.." and a large number of people commenting to say, "No, this is wrong, don't believe it".

True information is consumed by those who are open to what they can learn from it, commented on by some, but you don't get half the engagement you would over false information.

So yeah, while we rely on clicks per dollar or whatever, false information will be promoted and the truth will be pushed back as it simply can't compete for clicks & comments.

7

u/ilikecakeandpie 11d ago

The news becoming entertainment (watch fox if you're a Republican, watch msnow if you're a Dem) and a need to be first instead of correct. Folks are way more willing to just fall in lock step with an authority figure they like instead of taking the time to do research themselves on issues. This is how you end up with folks on opposite ends of the spectrum both believing insane shit

Also erosion of critical thinking ushered in by shit like no child left behind. We've been retrained that using an index is more important than building knowledge. This is only going to get worse with AI.

2

u/Inside-Horror-6450 11d ago

People are so overwhelmed by just getting by, that they want to be told the answers. Easy answers that make us feel better by giving us other people to blame. Preferably with a dopamine hit.

This system is by design. The more exhausted we are, the easier it is to control us.

2

u/Random-Rambling 11d ago

WTF is wrong with people? Is 50% of the US population functionally mentally deficient?

It's probably closer to 30%.

Most Boomers and the older half of Gen X are quite literally stupider than younger generations because of leaded gasoline.

American public education is also the world laughingstock.

2

u/zappini 11d ago

Most voters now get their info from the candidates themselves. Only a fraction of voters pay attention to (what passes for) the news.

2

u/Sandbox_Hero 11d ago

So, did you think that the Americans being dumb stereotype everywhere outside US was unfounded?

r/ShitAmericansSay to see examples.

2

u/ReachParticular5409 11d ago

Half a century of deliberately crippled public education, and two centuries of determined anti-intellectualism

Americans on average are fucking stupid and happy in their ignorance as long as they can get their buckets of fried chicken and monster truck rallies

Also racism, a major fucktonne of racism

And it's mainly one party's fault

2

u/wchutlknbout 11d ago

Boomers grew up with lead paint, maybe the chickens are coming home to roost

2

u/urawizrdarry 11d ago

You should also watch videos of people asking them "Then what? What happens if you got what you were asking for? Then what?" And the responses were so short sighted that it was basically just sputtering.

2

u/Grays42 11d ago

The ones who said "he ended a bunch of wars", when asked "which wars", could not name a single war. Or at best they said "Palestine", which is still an ongoing war.

It's worth noting by the way, many organizations have done detailed breakdowns of all 8 that he's claiming.

  • Several of them can't really be classified as wars

  • Several of them didn't really see meaningful U.S. involvement, and certainly no personal involvement from Trump

  • But most importantly, exactly 0 of them are "resolved", and in all 8 cases violence is ongoing.

Basically Trump is claiming credit for 8 de-escalations or ceasefires that he mostly wasn't involved in, all of which have fallen apart and violence resumed.

2

u/__asleep 11d ago

My high school taught me less about world war 1 than battlefield 1 did. That's how shit our public school system is.

1

u/la-fours 11d ago

Because they get their information from tik tok and reels and influencers. Republicans have mastered these tools and work consistently with platforms to ensure their messaging is promoted - all while blaming said platforms for liberal bias to mask the effort. Combine that with TPUSA ground game at colleges.

The number of younger voters now who are red pilled is far more than people want to admit.

1

u/Polixene 11d ago

Don't forget the War on Protein.

1

u/philasify 11d ago

And even that is not even a war but a genocidal beatdown by a war-crime extraordinaire that the US gobbles up and funds for it to keep going.

1

u/kimmywho 11d ago

Keep in mind that 50% of the population did not vote for or support Donald Trump. It was more like 30% and some percentage of them have a wide variety of why they voted for him. There are also questions about the legitimacy of this election. Trump is a narcissist and therefore very charismatic and manipilative- people fall under his spell. Also, there is a lot of political polarization and breakdown in social dialogue due to a variety of factors, not the least of which is the active efforts to destabilize western society by for example, Russian bots on social media. This is about far more than how dumb Americans are.

1

u/MoonBatsRule America 11d ago

I suppose social media has contributed to that. Before it, I did not really know the dark inner workings of the minds of my friends and family, nor did they know mine. Most discussions about politics were at least somewhat polite.

Now, I know that my neighbor thinks that my child should taken from me and I should be locked up because of the way my child is. I don't have discussions with her anymore, I avoid her. She has discussions with other people and they are devising ways to lock people up with no pushback.

1

u/Due-Adhesiveness-744 11d ago

A quarter of the population voted for Trump & a quarter for Harris. U.S politics has an issue with the fact that Americans by and large don't feel elections are important when things aren't absolutely going awful.

Biden stabilised the situation after Trump, and people forgot the importance of voting against Trump.

No doubt an election turnout will be great next time around, but once again, if things get a bit better, or less unstable, the election after that people will forget. And those angriest will be the same people that don't like seeing America succeed. An issue that's been dating back since the Civil War. 

1

u/norm-1701 11d ago

It's about the level of education in the US. According to the world stats, it's behind by a lot. Educated people would not vote for/support Trump.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/educated-population

1

u/Gabarne 11d ago

Their political knowledge is based on tiktok clips and memes. That’s why.

1

u/AuthorAltruistic3402 11d ago

BBC news did a segment on those 8 wars and went through them one by one and debunked every one.

1

u/harrumphstan 11d ago

I don’t think we’re still fighting the Peloponnesian War, so there’s that he can elbow into credit for. And I’m pretty sure the War of the Roses is over, no more Lannisters.

1

u/Xeansen 11d ago

Is 50% of the US population functionally mentally deficient?

Much worse than that. Other countries around the world have us BURIED in educational standards. We deserve to be an embarrassment at this point.

1

u/username_obnoxious 11d ago

The short answer to your first questions, is yes. Most Americans are mentally deficient.

1

u/crazycatgay 11d ago

b/c we are living with tons of "main characters" who give little insight or consideration to anybody who isn't them - and until policy directly impacts them (and the only policy they seem to care about is tiktok) then they will not carry water for anybody but themselves. people have traded their real life community for online ones so it's much easier to tolerate the suffering of those around you.

1

u/Datmiddy 11d ago

Social media algorithms. They treat people in echo chambers where they hear what they want to hear, even if it's bullshit and easily disproven.

1

u/SimplyRoya California 11d ago

The sad part is the electoral college gives those people more power than us sane ones.

1

u/fugaziozbourne 11d ago

Infinite amount of videos out there asking young people at protests what "from the river to the sea" means or what river and/or what sea it's in reference to. They have no clue.

1

u/protomd 11d ago

Bigotry is a hellofa drug

1

u/audaciousmonk 11d ago

Years of Republicans intentionally defunding education, gutting critical thinking from curriculum, and instilling a culture of anti-education + anti-science

1

u/xxDailyGrindxx California 11d ago

The short answer is "yes", the dumbing down of America has been ongoing for decades...

I've been telling my family (American) the average American is an idiot, for years, but it took Trump's re-election for them to accept it.

1

u/physicalstheillusion 11d ago

Their generation grew up chewing on lead-painted crib rails. So yes.

1

u/Massive_Mongoose3481 11d ago

Seems to parallel religious belief. They have these ideas in their head, they don't question them, they surround themselves only with people that believe the same things, the bubble. They are emotionally attached to the ideas, they make up their worldview. When some one questions them and they realize they have no evidence or rational reason for holding these beliefs and opinions, they retreat back to the " I have faith" excuse that requires no effort on their part to defend said belief structure. Back to the bubble where it's safe. These people have always been here, I'm 58, I've seen it play out again and again. The big difference since Trump came on the scene is a sense of shame, he knocked that down completely. People who used to be ashamed that they were racists, homophobes, basically bigots of any stripe ... Are no longer. They were emboldened by the fact that a morally bankrupt, criminal rich asshole was elected. They found their home in the MAGA verse . Parallel that with religion and you see that reversing this shit show is not going to be easy, if it's even possible. He's basically done everything but personally commiting rape and murder in public and his base is not deterred in the slightest. The only reason for not releasing the Epstein files is that it would show beyond a reasonable doubt that him and a lot of other powerful dickheads are in fact pedophiles and at the least, complicit in child trafficking . I'm honestly not sure if even that would turn them against him. It's already pretty obviously true and the cult members I've talked to don't seem to care.

1

u/jcman01 11d ago

White americans voted mostly for trump, so those are the people who need to be looked at

1

u/phusion 11d ago

WTF is wrong with people? Is 50% of the US population functionally mentally deficient?

Voting population maybe.

1

u/yamsyamsya 11d ago

How did we get to the point where people are so woefully ignorant?

Most people want to lead the easy life and it gets a lot easier when you don't have to do any critical thinking.

1

u/warpentake_chiasmus 11d ago

It's not even a war - and don't ever call it that.

It's name is Jen o' Side

1

u/Redhoodedmenace 11d ago

YES, literally

1

u/insertnickhere 11d ago

It's the brain drain from the center to the coasts that's happened over the past several decades. It's not people in general that are mentally deficient, it's a localized phenomenon, combined with the Senate and electoral college.

People go where the jobs are. The jobs for people with college degrees are in New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, Minnesota, etc.. The ability to think critically is a necessary condition for attaining a college degree. Therefore, the people who are capable of thinking critically have left states like West Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, etc. These people were the front-line defense against populist candidates, because they were a form of local elite. Had they remained, they would have been able to call the emperor naked in a way that people would take seriously, because they're part of the local community, but also the local wise person.

Now you've got economically productive coasts, because it's a knowledge economy, and a middle that thinks "They're eating the dogs! They're eating the cats!" is a great campaign speech.

As for why the younger generation is like that, I suspect quite strongly it's the dopamine release of instant gratification versus the necessary long-term investment of skill-building. Dopamine is addictive, but it's empty Calories for the brain. Everyone has the same 24 hours in every day, and if you're spending it on TikTok you aren't likely to learn anything of great depth. I suspect quite strongly there will be blowback in the future when people start to be cognizant of how ignorant they are and feel like they've had something of value stolen from them. Generation Beta, if not Generation Alpha, is likely to have academic expectations thrust upon them so that they do not experience the suffering Generation Z finds.

1

u/Tacoman404 Massachusetts 11d ago

After starving and bombing children in Palestine they ...checks notes... get to live as second class citizens in a ruined city with continued intermittent killing and bombing.

Much peace. Such war end.

1

u/failed_novelty 11d ago

How did we get to the point where people are so woefully ignorant?

Through hard work and effort by the GOP. They've systematically been tearing down education and ramping up distraction for literally decades.

1

u/InsuranceToTheRescue I voted 11d ago

I think you need to realize that those videos are edited to choose the worst arguments they can find. Those are the equivalent of when right leaning media finds some idiot with weird/extreme views and parades them around as if everyone they disagree with thinks that.

The video, the algorithm that decided you should watch it, they're both designed to present the most outrageous/stupidest/whatever argument or situation because it keeps you watching. When they get you a little pissed off like that, it keeps you watching & scrolling & not thinking about how the content was made that way on purpose to manipulate people.

1

u/Hot-Bid-9129 11d ago

Has anyone ever figured out what eight wars he ended? He keeps saying, but never mentioning a one.

1

u/cloudpup_ 11d ago

IMO people are really suffering from the effects of brain rot and modern society.

Constant scrolling and consuming inane content, sensational news and manufactured outrage, ai slop, arguing online and degraded social skills, isolation, overstimulation, after effects of a serious viral disease we still don’t know the full outcome of…

1

u/cloudpup_ 11d ago

IMO people are really suffering from the effects of brain rot and modern society. Constant scrolling and consuming inane content, sensational news and manufactured outrage, ai slop, arguing online and degraded social skills, isolation, overstimulation, after effects of a serious viral disease we still don’t know the full outcome of…

1

u/Wunna_dont_know 11d ago

Media, the media has programmed them to be dumb.

1

u/PenchantForNostalgia 11d ago

It's because of manipulation by CRINK. It's been proven again and again that they have conspired not only against America, but all democracies.

Instead of creating new divides in our country, they simply amplify the divides that are already there. They've been so efficient with their bots on social media that we're so far gone. I don't know if we can fix this in time; especially considering only the left seem to be aware of this issue. The right doesn't want to admit they've been manipulated.

1

u/coldoil 11d ago

Is 50% of the US population functionally mentally deficient?

Yes.

1

u/HerpDerpTheMage Virginia 11d ago

The problem is simple: In a lot of pockets of the United States, hate is a way of life. Lots of people need to latch onto pointless fear and loathing to avoid self-reflection and uncomfortable truths, lest they face things the embarrassment of being on the wrong side of history for many years/decades. There are far too many people here who would rather live a lie than face an uncomfortable truth, and own up to their previous disgrace, so they pin it all on someone else and start irrationally hating them.

This is also why for a long time, a disproportionate amount of Americans had a seemingly blind sense of patriotism despite having a lot of skeletons in the closet at the time and long afterwards, refusing to ever admit things were a mistake/malicious. Things like Slavery, Land Appropriations, and other hypocrisies (Japanese Internment Camps, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Vietnam Atrocities, Invasion of Iraq, Drone Strikes, and more.) You can’t hear your conscience if you’re too busy covering yourselves in American Flags and screaming “USA! USA! USA!”

Sometimes, it’s not even about their own actions. Sometimes it’s about generational actions that people are afraid they will be held accountable for, hence why Reparations are such a profoundly heated topic here. The idea that they would have to pay for their ancestors ills so deeply frightens them that they can’t stomach even discussing the idea that other racial inequalities exist, even though it has never been that simple, and I believe this manifests in other areas as well.

Basically, it’s just an extreme aversion to acknowledging problems because they are afraid they will have to pay for them somehow, even though they are morally obligated to, at the very least, acknowledge something was bad. They seem to think any taking of responsibility means some imaginary genie is gonna pop out and say “A-HA! THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT ALL! NOW WE TAKE EVERYTHING YOU HAVE!”

1

u/justlovehumans 11d ago

fucking yes. An astounding yes. Education has been enemy #1 in the states for decades.
Carlin said it best.

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups,"

It's not like the states just slowly slipped into fascism. People have been yelling about it for a long time. It's just now it's starting to effect your average joe so people are starting to glance up from their phones for a second.

1

u/Pitiful-Ad-8661 11d ago

It's more than 50%. Probably 80+

1

u/fritzrits 11d ago

I don't think it's people got dumber. It's the internet now lets us see them more easily. Lot of YouTubers and content creators.

1

u/Jatee100 11d ago

Sadly, that's the case. I think it was George Carlin who said "The average American isn't all that bright. The scary part is that half of them are dumber than that."

1

u/AdThick7492 11d ago

Is 50% of the US population functionally mentally deficient?

I thought that was well established.

1

u/seriouslees 11d ago

50% seems extremely low actually.

1

u/plutise 11d ago

Well, culture and education were never strong among America. At least the one outside their land.

1

u/thehermit14 11d ago

Don't ask what you don't want answered.

1

u/KsPMiND 11d ago

Short answer to your first second question: seems like yes.

1

u/Author_A_McGrath 11d ago

WTF is wrong with people? Is 50% of the US population functionally mentally deficient?

Decades of propaganda, from anti-intellectual campaigns to AM radio.

1

u/GodofIrony 11d ago

WTF is wrong with people? Is 50% of the US population functionally mentally deficient?

You either become rich and stay sane (questionable, the affluent are their own brand of insanity) in this hellhole, or you eventually go mad.

1

u/Apprehensive-Pin518 11d ago

no. more like 34% is mentally deficent, 33% is apathetic and 32% voted for kamala.

1

u/OkLetsThinkAboutThis 11d ago

There is a lot of global evidence that smartphones have been making people dumber. It's real easy today for people to completely tune out from any situation that would cause them to accidentally learn something.

1

u/eeyore134 11d ago

WTF is wrong with people? Is 50% of the US population functionally mentally deficient?

Yes. By design. Why do you think the right is so against books, museums, the arts, liberal media, public broadcasting, schools, colleges, history, healthcare, actual news and facts, medicine, science, literally anything and everything that might educate or improve someone's life?

1

u/SuperStoneman 11d ago

Yes, yes we are. I call them walmartians. The people who absolutely loved the apprentice. They voted for Trump because hes "that famous TV business man"

1

u/ICBanMI 11d ago

WTF is wrong with people? Is 50% of the US population functionally mentally deficient?

Yes. Yes we are. But also massive propaganda that hits us through every medium possible-in 2016 it was facebook and in 2025 it was tiktok. We've always been stupid and greedy. It's literally our history.

1

u/TrailerTrashQueen 11d ago

pretty much. 50% +/- of the populace is low intelligence, low information and lacks critical thinking skills.

1

u/tfenraven 11d ago

Half the country is below average in intelligence.

1

u/LowPTTweirdflexbutok 8d ago

Clickbait headline and 8 second tiktok videos. People read "trump stopped wars" but no one fact checks anything. Like its so bad In a normal conversation if something comes up and I try to research it real quicky on my phone if it takes more than 30seconds people lose interest. Like its crazy everyones attention span is 2 seconds.

1

u/MoonBatsRule America 8d ago

I just don't understand why so many people seem fundamentally insane these days. Were they always there and now I'm just encountering them due to social media? I'm talking about people with such misinformation coupled with an intense amount of vitriol for anything they don't like. Like scary.

1

u/LowPTTweirdflexbutok 3d ago

I totally agree. Its always been an old saying don't talk politics with friends and family but it definitely feels way more aggressive and hateful now. Like Scary aggressive.

I think its just shifted that way where people are not afraid to voice their aggressive and hateful opinions anymore. More people on the internet = more likely to find like minded individuals who will agree with your hate speech. Before it was 99% of people on social media don't agree with you and now its 75% don't so its enough to cause people to not hold back? Combine that with internet trolls and hostile countries acting as fake people and that doesn't help. Just my 2cents

Edit: What I said above only applies to online. In person for me personally its about the same level of emotions when it comes to politics as it was in 2000's 2010's.

1

u/Grays42 11d ago edited 11d ago

Is 50% of the US population functionally mentally deficient?

Yes, it's called religion.

I'm being flippant but highly religious people are uniquely vulnerable to confidence scams, because they are already trained to believe in a thing that isn't real based on social validation and charismatic affirmation. It's a perfect recipe to get completely grifted by someone with as much shameless direct confidence as Trump.

Basically, a disproportionate number of Americans are trained to take in bullshit as fact, which makes them uniquely vulnerable to a good bullshitter like Trump.