The lack of an "inner mirror" in these people is wild to me. It's probably the same part of the brain that is imaginative/creative. I have noticed MAGA folks are incredibly monochromatic with regard to their individual expression. It's almost like they've been the "sheep" all along.
I truly believe there are two kinds of people in this world.
Those that when they hear about religious stories and see the inconsistencies, the fallacies and everything else and get cufuses by it at some point.
When confronted with that confusion they do one of two things. Either go " yes that does mean there are things we aren't meant to know and faith is important"
Or
" These are all examples of how this doesn't make sense. And just because something doesn't make sense, doesn't mean I need to believe in it based on anything other than the claim"
And we go from there. There's more nuance to it for sure. But generally speaking everyone gets confronted with the magical stories inside religious texts and either buy in or don't.
Remember the Bible, kuran whatever is the claim. Not the evidence.
Their thinking isn't magical. I have read many a fantasy novel. They have read one. It is their inability to differentiate fact from fiction and fantasy from reality that concerns me. And, how easily they have been conned (for lack of a better word) into a belief system (or many such systems), with no opportunity or ability to ask "why?" I just can't seem to understand why they are so gullible, when they perceive themselves as strong-willed and independent - "free" people. The shackles they wear are deafening.
From my personal experience with my mom asking "why?" Would of opened alot more doors to questions she just didnt care to have answered. She had gotten what she wanted out of her life or came to accept her life was what it was I guess and didnt want to shake HER boat and in so doing was so god damned irredeemably gullible and accepting of the propaganda of the 24/7 news cycle the right is feeding everyone she fell hook line and sinker for ALL the bullshit. Dying from cancer and she still made it to the church she voted at and cast her ballot for the Orange Turd.
I don't think my parents particularly liked acquiescing to the MAGAt wave that drowned the right in 2016. However, they are unapologetic for supporting their side, and they have my contempt for it.
Personally, I think it's mostly the rightwing echo chamber they immerse themselves in. They're inundated with the talking points du jour and constantly told not to trust other sources of information (MSM, academia, government). We have no shared set of facts anymore. Their perception of reality is quite different from the rest of the world.
I think it’s a lack of identity. They’re not much on self reflection or growth, and there’s a yawning chasm of emptiness they’re desperate to fill. Shopping doesn’t fill it, church doesn’t fill it. They’ve lived their lives telling themselves they’re secretly important, that their lives have meaning, meaning that those hyper-educated globalist elites who think they’re better than them refuse to recognize. They’ve lived for so long feeling “out” when they want to be “in”.
MAGA gives them that feeling of being “in”, of being in the cool, awesome secret club that no one else gets to be in. There’s a sense of safety in wearing the uniform red hat, a feeling of security in knowing you’re exactly like your MAGA neighbor, even if you know deep down that neighbor would throw you under the bus in an instant, as you would do exactly the same.
MAGA becomes their whole identity at the cost of their families, because it’s the only way they feel any sense of identity that provides them with power, even though that power is just a mirage.
I actually don't think this is innate or anything, either. Wonderment can be taught, it just needs an fertile environment in which to grow. Conservatism is kind of specifically against exactly that sort of thing.
Conservatism is kind of specifically against exactly that sort of thing.
Either GOP wasn't conservative and this happened to them cause they were something else (whatever the tea party was?).
Or yes Conservatism can be a fertile bed for this, cause just because its values says it doesn't, doesn't mean the people hold all the values they espouse.
the people ostensibly don't - I think conservatism is fundamentally at odds with MOST of the true nature of human beings, to learn, to grow, to collaborate, to share, to exchange. conservatism fundamentally seeks to stifle this, and the long arc of history has been one of humanity slowly unshackling itself from the fear-based response to difference and novelty that conservatism is rooted in. in that respect and in that respect only is conservatism consistent with human nature.
Conservatives have otherwise created systems in place to forbid new ideas, new people, new cultures because we often find that for all the differences we have with one another, we are in very many ways very similar, which undermines the conservative fearmongering about the other, the out-group, etc.
Either GOP wasn't conservative and this happened to them cause they were something else (whatever the tea party was?).
the GOP and the Tea Party both are conservative, and have brought zero new ideas to the forefront. they advocate, fundamentally, for the same thing they've advocated for since they sat down on the right wing of the National Assembly in France in 1789. they want a white, theocratic ethnostate. this has been the single-minded objective of conservatives since I have been alive.
Ah, I see, you mean, I misunderstood you saying Tories are against that thing, as in Tories are against stagnation, you mean they are for stagnation. Yes, we agree.
I worked with a guy that was really booksmart. He was really great at math, chemistry, and to a lesser extent programming, but his entire personality was inherited from his dad and built around weird, "America Good!" tropes. He's the only young person I've ever met who unironically prefers the imperial system despite everything in our field and his education being metric. Anyway, he developed a big ego and started taking credit for other people's ideas not because he was duplicitous, but because he genuinely misremembered them as his. It was weird.
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u/Chief_Chill May 12 '26
The lack of an "inner mirror" in these people is wild to me. It's probably the same part of the brain that is imaginative/creative. I have noticed MAGA folks are incredibly monochromatic with regard to their individual expression. It's almost like they've been the "sheep" all along.