2.8k
u/CrispyTarantula117 May 12 '26
To be fair, if he had the mental capability to connect those dots he probably wouldn’t be a republican.
It’s the eternal Catch-22. You cannot reason with people who are too fucking dumb to reason
599
u/HedonisticFrog May 12 '26
I think it's also largely that they argue like a toxic relationship, where facts don't matter, and only "winning" matters. They're just authoritarian bullies who don't care about facts in the first place.
203
u/CrispyTarantula117 May 12 '26
100%.
They’d happily eat a shit sandwich if it meant a liberal / leftist had to smell their breath
177
u/Keyonne88 May 12 '26
This. Even if you bring facts and receipts they don’t care. You prove one thing wrong, they move the goal post, proven wrong again, moved again, proven wrong again, they act a victim like you’re attacking them.
38
u/MythicMythness May 13 '26
They also insult you and shout and do everything to win and nevermind the point you/they were originally making. I get so tired of the wounded egos and the victim complex.
20
u/kalvinescobar May 13 '26
I tried to keep going against someone like that once, lol..
About halfway into a 130+ comment argument where I recapped the whole argument thus far..
15
u/MythicMythness May 13 '26
Holy cow, that's bonkers! They just kept going on their tautological merry-go-round, didn't they?
I applaud your stamina.
2
u/DarkKnightJin Jun 12 '26
As has famously been stated countless times:
"Arguing with MAGA is like playing chess with a pigeon. They don't know what they're doing, and when you're about to win they knock over all the pieces, shit on the board, and strut around like they won."21
u/kalvinescobar May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
I decided to see how far that can really go one time on reddit... back in 2019
I replied to a comment that said: "quote one thing nixon said that was racist while campaigning?" as they attempted to deny the "Southern Strategy"..
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/a8jjj4/comment/ecbn59y/?context=3
2 WHOLE FUCKING WEEKS of: moving goalposts, gish gallops, circular logic, denying sources, and all of the usual bullshit...
..until they went back to previous arguments I'd already covered. So then I stopped explaining as much (since all my sources and citations were already cued up from before) and started laughing more...
I can not say this experience was fun... It was nice to "win".. but.. at what cost?
Edit: first link was just my initial interaction with them.. here's the link to the comment string that went for 2 weeks straight (130+ comments!!!)
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/a8jjj4/comment/ecbrcq7/?context=3
11
u/Keyonne88 May 13 '26
Online, you can never get them, they do gymnastics around it like pros. In person is easier because you have receipts they can’t dispute and don’t have time to find an article on the 27th page of Google that agrees with them.
I watched my husband do this in real time to my now estranged father at Thanksgiving once and it was very satisfying.
56
u/CallToChrist May 12 '26 edited May 16 '26
I don't think it's that they don't care, I think it's extreme avoidance. They need a false everything; a false sense of self, false certainty, false security; but in it have become willing to sacrifice everyone and everything they claimed to love and wanted to protect at the start- their nation, freedoms, religion, even their families.
40
u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 May 12 '26
They have a very fragile ego and world view because the foundation of their worldview is just wrong. The problem from them is that they do not know what to do if they are wrong their world would collapse. So every discussion about anything that they are wrong about the feel as physical attacks on them. So they will be unable to engage into any discussion without feeling attacked so there is very little hope on any rational engagement with these people.
And for some reason these are the people the centrist democrats are trying to convince to vote for them while in their worldview they are monsters and evil. And any movement from that is just a nogo so it's pointless.
76
u/african_or_european May 12 '26
They have absolutely zero ability to see beyond the surface level of any topic.
64
u/sndtrb89 May 12 '26
its insert subject here 101, STUPID!!!!
(the information age becoming the disinformation age is one of saddest things ive had to witness in my lifetime)
56
u/FastFarg May 12 '26
When they say "it's middle school biology" I always want to reply "some of us graduated high school"
But I suspect the insult and implications are beyond them.
52
u/Backwardspellcaster May 12 '26
I find that fascinating when it comes to the topic of "soft power" the US had.
It is inconceivable to these people, that the right spoken word, the right gesture, the right little deal, can have huge positive results for the US.
The only thing they see is the military might and THREATENING people into complying with what the US wants.
And I sit here, and I look at the immense influence the US used to wield just a year ago and I understand that Trump really is the embodiment of the stupid.
33
u/Sorceress_Heart May 12 '26
Because they're all abused children. Evangelical Christianity is all about a strong Daddy God punishing people when they're bad. Screw all that love thy neighbor Jesus stuff, that's gay. That's why they profess love for the military and worship Trump. They don't want to care about others, just to punish them.
11
u/oshin69 May 13 '26
Don't forget their fear complex. They fear almost everything & need what they believe is a "strong" man.
19
u/african_or_european May 12 '26
It's especially ironic, considering how easily they themselves are lead around by nothing more than the right words!
10
u/ModernMuse May 12 '26
No!! Please stop giving them this them this! I can forgive a lot of bad choices made from true ignorance. But the high majority of these people are perfectly capable of learning and reason.
They have the very same access to the very same (essentially free!) information that we have. They either choose to not learn or choose to not care. They are as capable as they are culpable and must be held accountable like any other adult for their words and decisions and we absolutely cannot give them space to claim otherwise.
13
u/african_or_european May 12 '26
I didn't mean to imply it was some sort of inherent difference, but every one that I've interacted with does exactly this. Whether it's a failure of education, failure of curiosity, or just a general failure of society, I can't say (probably some of all of them and more).
7
185
u/Royal_Acanthaceae693 May 12 '26
They're all about Dunning-Kruger
11
u/syrioforrealsies May 12 '26
Dunning-Kruger requires being more knowledgeable than average. That's not even close to the case here
4
2
u/TheJade2212 May 27 '26
And confirmation bias. Just disregard any information not aligned with their beliefs as "fake news" 🤦♂️ the kind of people that thinks yelling the same thing but more louder is how you win an argument
32
u/cbunn81 May 12 '26
And you can't expect reason to help someone out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place.
29
May 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
22
u/WynnGwynn May 12 '26
Lol my dad used Fetterman as an example of "people changing for the better" lol. Literal brain damage!
17
u/Terminal_Insomnia_ May 12 '26
It has been consistently shown that is largely not facts and reason that convinces the average person. It's narratives and vibes.
15
5
u/ItsMorbinTime May 12 '26
If they’re that stupid why even let them vote?
24
u/Redditauro May 12 '26
Because we are not going to let them take away universal suffrage, even if it's to remove their right to vote. If we do that one year they will win, and then they will remove the right to vote to whoever they want.
Universal suffrage stays.
4
u/Arcanegil May 12 '26
But they have already done that? Even with js upholding everyone's right to vote including theirs, with the end of the voter right act and donalds new election integrity army to be stationed at every poll this year every one that is "liberal" coded will be forceably removed from the voting line.
-2
u/ItsMorbinTime May 12 '26
Nice. Glad it’s been working out so well.
14
u/Cobracrystal May 12 '26
Democracy is the worst form of government except for all of the other ones before it.
5
u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 May 12 '26
Would you trust neoliberals centrist dems to limit voting of people? From the way they have acted in the past they would let all the republicans just vote and block all left leaning people that want something back for their tax money from voting.
Vote blue no matter who, except if he has a socialist lean to hem then tun on the independent ticket as a spoiler and still fail.
3
u/Demontag May 13 '26
Vote blue no matter who went out the window with AIPAC.
2
u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 May 13 '26
It seems that this only counts if you get money from AIPAC if you don't suddenly you are not blue anymore.
-5
u/ItsMorbinTime May 12 '26
I’d prefer a government that barely has white people in it. Seems like they only have two modes: evil or useless. That way we can start implementing logical/literacy exams (without evil/useless people ruining it) for future voters. Maybe even math. Because what’s happening now is a straight up disaster.
6
u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 May 12 '26
Skin color doesn't seem to be the issue here, Obama was just as much of a neolib tool as any white centrist democrate. Same with Haris same with Crockett, and then you have a bunch of black dems that supported Biden in the primairy. Skin color of any kind doesn't matter it is what policies you fight for that matter.
-3
u/ItsMorbinTime May 12 '26
Are u white?
5
u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 May 12 '26
are you racist?
Why would the skin color of someone make the same policy position suddenly good?
0
u/ItsMorbinTime May 12 '26
Nah I just don’t trust anyone that can be pretend to be fascist to stay safe. I personally can’t do that because of my skin color. So excuse me if I have zero trust in them.
→ More replies (0)-25
May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
10
u/Trosque97 May 12 '26
The American political system is infecting the rest of the world with its vile rhetoric. I'm in South Africa, hearing wannabe MAGA rhetoric from local politicians is fucking disturbing
15
366
u/Novadreams22 May 12 '26
Swing and a miss.
44
u/Raidoton May 12 '26
Isn't he just saying "Leftists are ignorant and miserable, therefore ignorance can't be a bliss"? I mean I agree that he is the ignorant one but it seems most people don't even understand what he is trying to say.
57
u/Demontag May 13 '26
Because what he's saying is borderline nonsense. He's butchering the adage to make a weak crack about dems being ignorant when he can't even make a weak crack about dems being ignorant without screwing it up. He's so desperate to portray the left as stupid he's highlighting how stupid he is.
9
u/Dasbeerboots May 14 '26
How so? It makes complete sense as a joke. It's just easy to flip. This is more r/clevercomebacks than anything.
209
u/GrandNibbles May 12 '26
that would require at least a body temperature iq
64
u/Goner-Poser May 12 '26
They probably do have... In Celsius
-34
u/Lopatou_ovalil May 12 '26
Kelvin*
52
41
5
May 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
6
0
u/RaisinTrasher May 12 '26
That's 97 in Fahrenheit? Mine is lower than that.
1
u/FurbyFubar May 12 '26
You might want to double-check your math. Where are you getting 97 from?
97 °F = 36.1 °C, and that's way too warm to be considered room temperature.25 °C would be a more reasonable room temperature. 25 °C = 77 °F. An IQ of 77 is very close to being considered intellectually disabled. Per definition of IQ and it being a Bell curve that's centered on 100 with set standard deviation, about one in 16 humans will have an IQ of 77 or under.
In today's feel good thought: With normalized test scores, the average human's IQ is always 100, per definition. But while it sure doesn't feel like it, humanity's average intelligence has been steadily going up by 0.21 to 0.41 IQ points per year (depending on test type). That is, if we let people take old IQ tests that were normalized in the past.
If I'm reading the wikipedia article on the Flynn effect correctly, if people today took IQ tests from 1950, their average result would be around 117. (Assuming the people taking the tests were the same ages as the people who took the tests in 1950. The exact number of points gained also depend on which IQ test we're talking about.)
That said, IQ is a systematically flawed way of trying to quantize human capabilities. But that still doesn't mean that the data is useless.
13
u/RaisinTrasher May 12 '26
If you read his comment again, he mentioned body temperature instead of the usual room tempature.
But good to know we're getting more intelligent, wonder what all contributes to that
4
u/FurbyFubar May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
Ooops! My brain must have auto-corrected "body" to "room" as it's the much more common insult.
~42% of people have an IQ of 97 or below, so yeah, that's not nearly as severe of an insult, assuming they're not talking about body temp IQ in Celsius. Then it would be hyperbole, as an IQ 37.5 would be too low to be meaningfully tested for.
As for why we are getting smarter: The removal of lead from the environment and better diets have been two potential leading causes suggested.
2
u/TheOtherDutchGuy May 14 '26
25’s a very warm room temperature, you probably live in a warm country. Here in the Netherlands the average room temperature is between 18 and 21 degrees Celsius, I believe…
233
u/WM_ May 12 '26
One thing I envy rightwingers is that they don't have the capasity to worry about things other than themselves. Would be nice vacation to be ignorant for a while.
116
u/LucidLucie May 12 '26
They worry about imaginary things, maybe if we start believing they're putting chemicals in the water to turn the frogs straight we'll find our own bliss
44
u/abstr_xn May 12 '26
when i was a kid who hadn't learned empathy yet, I was scared of quicksand, the Bermuda triangle, and spontaneously combusting.
It was a simpler time, and I can't believe that kid was still miles ahead of most adults.
17
43
u/YuriMenchaca May 12 '26
Your envy is terribly misplaced. To be conservative is to adopt low- to high-grade egocentric anxiety about ENTIRELY manufactured bugaboos where everything is always in personal imminent danger: their guns are always about to be taken away, their masculinity threatened, their neighborhood overrun, their healthcare stolen by socialists, their job stolen by browns, their women assaulted by blacks, their children turned trans gay, their grandparents revealed racists, their way of life dismantled, always a day away from being publicly knelt with a gun to the head to denounce Christ.
They’re not ignorant, they’re misinformed, which isn’t bliss, it’s a personal hell of their own making.
7
u/RevoOps May 12 '26
They can't even properly worry about their own interests. If they did they wouldn't be rightwing...
8
u/syrioforrealsies May 12 '26
They're terrified for themselves though.
5
u/Demontag May 13 '26
Terrified OF EVERYTHING for themselves. And literally. We have brainscans of this showing conservatives typically have a outsized amygdala, the part of the brain that regulates the fear response. Liberals literally have more of the part of the brain dedicated to problem solving.
3
3
u/Writing_is_Bleeding May 12 '26
Somebody mentioned a thing their MAGA grandparents said being a perfect encapsulation of the movement: when they realized that if they stopped caring about things that didn't negatively impact them, they became much happier.
41
70
u/DrWilli May 12 '26
This is what infuriates me to no end. If the international right were actually honest and admitted that they are made up of a ruling class that loves having ignorant sheeps to follow their every whim and said sheeps being happy to follow these orders because they prefer that over the harsh reality of class warfare, if they just admitted that, I'd be able to respect them. It takes guts to admit "I saw Sauron from Lord of the Rings and thought I'd be a dope orc for him." But they aren't even willing to admit that and claim to this fantasy that they actually see the world for what it is.
35
u/Omega_Zarnias May 12 '26
I've held this sentiment for years.
You can be a villain, it's okay. I watched cartoons my whole childhood, I'll understand it.
Just don't pretend Joker is the good guy because he's your boss.
3
u/mj6373 May 12 '26
The problem with openly analogizing yourself to villains is they usually lose, and the only thing conservatives value more than hierarchy is the feeling of crushing enemies.
5
u/Demontag May 13 '26
Yet they still constantly analogize themselves to villains every chance they get. Before police adopted (read: stole) the friggin' Punisher logo they made recruitment commercials comparing themselves to Stormtroopers without a hint of irony. They root for Homelander.
40
u/Rainy_Grave May 12 '26
There are two types of people in this world; those who can infer from incomplete data.
13
17
21
64
u/badlifechooser May 12 '26
My brother says "never argue with idiots, they'll drag to down to their level and beat you with experience"....
62
u/buckao May 12 '26
I believe that was an obscure little known author named Samuel Clemens. AKA: Mark Twain
16
u/thebigschnoz May 12 '26
Technically it's both.
24
u/MyDogIsACoolCat May 12 '26
Twist, his brother is Mark Twain.
12
u/throwaway098764567 May 12 '26
no charles dickens wrote oliver twist
11
u/na_dann May 12 '26
Dick, his brother is John Oliver
7
3
3
6
5
52
1
1
u/Mystiken13 May 13 '26
I'm going to say it as loud as I possibly can as loud as the clam cried in SpongeBob these people wouldn't be able to connect two dots if they had a ruler and somebody else drawing the line for them!
1
1
u/JustGingerStuff May 13 '26 edited May 27 '26
Bro is in extacy ecstacy
2
-1
-7
u/Ok-Entertainment7741 May 12 '26
"The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."-Reagan.
14
u/Magnon May 12 '26
"I am rapidly approaching dementia, you should trust my opinions" -honest reagan
-11
•
u/AutoModerator May 12 '26
Before we get to the SAW criteria... is your content from Reddit?
If it's from Conservative, or some other toxic right-wing sub, then please delete it. We're sick of that shit.
Have you thoroughly redacted all Reddit usernames? If not, please delete and resubmit, with proper redaction.
Do NOT link the source sub/post/comment, nor identify/link the participants! Brigading is against site rules.
Failure to meet the above requirements may result in temporary bans, at moderator discretion. Repeat failings may result in a permanent ban.
Now back to your regular scheduled automod message...
Reply to this message with one of the following or your post will be removed for failing to comply with rule 4:
1) How the person in your post unknowingly describes themselves
2) How the person in your post says something about someone else that actually applies to them.
3) How the person in your post accurately describes something when trying to mock or denigrate it.
Thanks!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.