Thanks again for another very smart post. To me, it points to the futility of engaging hardcore MAGA with logical argumentation and reasonable political discussion - their identity issues have made them immune to logic and reason. The best bet is to push them to the side of our politics and our society as best as possible, and save logic and reason for those Trump voters (and non-voters) who aren't bound up in MAGA cultism. Not that appealing to those folks' self-interest or just plain dumb decision making processes will be an edifying experience. But at least it's doable through patient argument and engagement - whereas saving MAGA from their own delusions is not.
In high school we had buttons that said “Question Authority”. We were taught to actively question everything put to us. Science was factual and religion was blind faith. Maybe that was the 70’s or maybe that was having multiple newspapers to peruse through since we didn’t have TV. Maybe it was having grandparents from different countries, but I sure had critical thinking instilled in me. I find it so hard to understand why people fall hook, line, and sinker for crap without verifying facts.
Thank you for another wonderful essay. It explains so much. I keep waiting for the MAGA Republicans to turn on Trump for all of his manifest, failures and betrayals of them and now I can understand why they don’t, why they seem to stick with him no matter what, no matter how much he hurts them.
I never read these articles of yours that I do not see more. Then, too, I wonder about my own grounding. I wonder if I am subject to some of it - perhaps I am entrenched in a tribal reality. Prhaps I need to know more and cannot reach out of the boundary. It is so helpful to analyze and consider. So, thank you.
I will recommend a very good book, You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney. It was very eye opening to me. It touches on a lot of cognitive biases and fallacies
In every culture where birth control and education become available, women choose to have fewer children and to educate themselves so they can contribute to their family finances and to society. Its why the Population Bomb did not go off. In the US, white folk are not replacing themselves. Minorities and immigrants have not hit that tipping point, but they will. I'm the meantime, the future WILL be more diverse. Whites WILL be the minority. And more whites WILL live in poverty, as will everyone until the news makes the growing ratio of upper incomes to lower incomes a feature of the weekly news. Maybe this central fear of becoming a minority and being treated as such is an issue we can gently address with our MAGA friends. Because MAGA is not going to stop that progression.
Excellent. A few questions that I can’t find answered in your profile or posts. Who are you? If you want to remain anonymous, why ? Understandable to someone doing the same here, but interested in your particular answer. Do you have more specific thoughts on how to engage (or not engage) with MAGA folks? I read much of what you write as diagnosis and have a hard time finding specific prescriptions.
We know these people; they are friends and family. Reason does not work and I certainly don’t want to wait for them to come to their senses while they continue to destroy the US and its people. How is holding up a mirror to them different from trying to reason? Sanders and AOC are having some success at flipping the script about us/them. How do we alleviate MAGA fear and change the script? I have no illusions about being able to appeal to their “better angels.”
Do you happen to read Matt Taibi? He seems like a case study in this. From calling the Left Orwellian as Trump sends masked troops to confront protesters he forbids from wearing masks to the whole masculinity deal. Very stuck in the mindset you outline here.
More confirmation bias from the Rationale League of Intellectual Lemmings, to whit:
“Study after study reveals that MAGA voters are more likely to score higher on psychological traits such as Right-Wing Authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996), Social Dominance Orientation (Pratto et al., 1994), identity fusion (Swann et al., 2009), and conspiratorial thinking (Imhoff & Lamberty, 2020). These aren’t just abstract profiles, they're the scaffolding on which the MAGA worldview is built.”
So let’s see what might emerge if we change just one little word from this excerpt,
‘Study after study reveals that WOKE voters are more likely to score higher on psychological traits such as Right-Wing Authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996), Social Dominance Orientation (Pratto et al., 1994), identity fusion (Swann et al., 2009), and conspiratorial thinking (Imhoff & Lamberty, 2020). These aren’t just abstract profiles, they're the scaffolding on which the WOKE worldview is built.’… my, my, my.
Now I might have changed two little words, alternating Right-Wing to Left-Wing in the Altemeyer article, but my wicked sense of humor prevailed. Why bother reading yet another bloated post from The Rationale League of Artificial Intelligence, when just a paragraph or two will do?
Ah yes, the classic “flip it and pretend it’s profound” maneuver. You didn’t rebut the research. you just swapped terms like a child playing Mad Libs with peer-reviewed literature. Unfortunately, Altemeyer didn’t write The Left-Wing Authoritarian Specter, nor did Pratto design Social Dominance Orientation to describe social justice activists. You’re parodying the scholarship without understanding it.
But let’s indulge the joke.
You claim “WOKE” voters show high RWA and SDO scores? Great, then cite one meta-analysis or peer-reviewed study that supports your substitution. I’ll wait. (Spoiler: the few studies on so-called Left-Wing Authoritarianism either show it’s far rarer, structurally different, or not linked to the same social harms.)
In contrast, MAGA support correlates consistently with:
obedience to strongmen,
support for political violence,
distrust of pluralism,
and identity fusion with the leader (see: January 6th).
That’s not “confirmation bias.” That’s data. What you’re doing is ideological cosplay.
Now, if you’d like to engage with the research rather than parody it, I’m happy to oblige. But if this is just satire for the sake of avoiding facts, then congratulations, you’ve confirmed the thesis better than any citation could.
On half of a lower movement, I humbly accept your nomination for the role of “Natural Epitome”. Had I known that such a position existed, I would have expressed my stereotype more effusively in my audition. But for your uncanny ability to uncover my codependent traits of craven obedience to our dear Leader, love of political violence, multiple personality disorder, and distrust of plurals, I might have missed this signal opportunity. When it comes to Stereotypes, I bow before your mastery!!!
Thanks again for another very smart post. To me, it points to the futility of engaging hardcore MAGA with logical argumentation and reasonable political discussion - their identity issues have made them immune to logic and reason. The best bet is to push them to the side of our politics and our society as best as possible, and save logic and reason for those Trump voters (and non-voters) who aren't bound up in MAGA cultism. Not that appealing to those folks' self-interest or just plain dumb decision making processes will be an edifying experience. But at least it's doable through patient argument and engagement - whereas saving MAGA from their own delusions is not.
In high school we had buttons that said “Question Authority”. We were taught to actively question everything put to us. Science was factual and religion was blind faith. Maybe that was the 70’s or maybe that was having multiple newspapers to peruse through since we didn’t have TV. Maybe it was having grandparents from different countries, but I sure had critical thinking instilled in me. I find it so hard to understand why people fall hook, line, and sinker for crap without verifying facts.
Thank you for another wonderful essay. It explains so much. I keep waiting for the MAGA Republicans to turn on Trump for all of his manifest, failures and betrayals of them and now I can understand why they don’t, why they seem to stick with him no matter what, no matter how much he hurts them.
I never read these articles of yours that I do not see more. Then, too, I wonder about my own grounding. I wonder if I am subject to some of it - perhaps I am entrenched in a tribal reality. Prhaps I need to know more and cannot reach out of the boundary. It is so helpful to analyze and consider. So, thank you.
I will recommend a very good book, You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney. It was very eye opening to me. It touches on a lot of cognitive biases and fallacies
I will get a copy. thank you.
In every culture where birth control and education become available, women choose to have fewer children and to educate themselves so they can contribute to their family finances and to society. Its why the Population Bomb did not go off. In the US, white folk are not replacing themselves. Minorities and immigrants have not hit that tipping point, but they will. I'm the meantime, the future WILL be more diverse. Whites WILL be the minority. And more whites WILL live in poverty, as will everyone until the news makes the growing ratio of upper incomes to lower incomes a feature of the weekly news. Maybe this central fear of becoming a minority and being treated as such is an issue we can gently address with our MAGA friends. Because MAGA is not going to stop that progression.
Excellent. A few questions that I can’t find answered in your profile or posts. Who are you? If you want to remain anonymous, why ? Understandable to someone doing the same here, but interested in your particular answer. Do you have more specific thoughts on how to engage (or not engage) with MAGA folks? I read much of what you write as diagnosis and have a hard time finding specific prescriptions.
We know these people; they are friends and family. Reason does not work and I certainly don’t want to wait for them to come to their senses while they continue to destroy the US and its people. How is holding up a mirror to them different from trying to reason? Sanders and AOC are having some success at flipping the script about us/them. How do we alleviate MAGA fear and change the script? I have no illusions about being able to appeal to their “better angels.”
Brilliant, convincing elucidation.
Be scared, be very scared!
In the following sentence, I think you intended to say the oppressors, not the oppressed:
"The oppressed, in their mind, are anyone who dares to oppose their dominance."
Do you happen to read Matt Taibi? He seems like a case study in this. From calling the Left Orwellian as Trump sends masked troops to confront protesters he forbids from wearing masks to the whole masculinity deal. Very stuck in the mindset you outline here.
More confirmation bias from the Rationale League of Intellectual Lemmings, to whit:
“Study after study reveals that MAGA voters are more likely to score higher on psychological traits such as Right-Wing Authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996), Social Dominance Orientation (Pratto et al., 1994), identity fusion (Swann et al., 2009), and conspiratorial thinking (Imhoff & Lamberty, 2020). These aren’t just abstract profiles, they're the scaffolding on which the MAGA worldview is built.”
So let’s see what might emerge if we change just one little word from this excerpt,
‘Study after study reveals that WOKE voters are more likely to score higher on psychological traits such as Right-Wing Authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996), Social Dominance Orientation (Pratto et al., 1994), identity fusion (Swann et al., 2009), and conspiratorial thinking (Imhoff & Lamberty, 2020). These aren’t just abstract profiles, they're the scaffolding on which the WOKE worldview is built.’… my, my, my.
Now I might have changed two little words, alternating Right-Wing to Left-Wing in the Altemeyer article, but my wicked sense of humor prevailed. Why bother reading yet another bloated post from The Rationale League of Artificial Intelligence, when just a paragraph or two will do?
Ah yes, the classic “flip it and pretend it’s profound” maneuver. You didn’t rebut the research. you just swapped terms like a child playing Mad Libs with peer-reviewed literature. Unfortunately, Altemeyer didn’t write The Left-Wing Authoritarian Specter, nor did Pratto design Social Dominance Orientation to describe social justice activists. You’re parodying the scholarship without understanding it.
But let’s indulge the joke.
You claim “WOKE” voters show high RWA and SDO scores? Great, then cite one meta-analysis or peer-reviewed study that supports your substitution. I’ll wait. (Spoiler: the few studies on so-called Left-Wing Authoritarianism either show it’s far rarer, structurally different, or not linked to the same social harms.)
In contrast, MAGA support correlates consistently with:
obedience to strongmen,
support for political violence,
distrust of pluralism,
and identity fusion with the leader (see: January 6th).
That’s not “confirmation bias.” That’s data. What you’re doing is ideological cosplay.
Now, if you’d like to engage with the research rather than parody it, I’m happy to oblige. But if this is just satire for the sake of avoiding facts, then congratulations, you’ve confirmed the thesis better than any citation could.
I was going say Randy is the epitome of all you just wrote.
Thank you. Just trying to help.😎
On half of a lower movement, I humbly accept your nomination for the role of “Natural Epitome”. Had I known that such a position existed, I would have expressed my stereotype more effusively in my audition. But for your uncanny ability to uncover my codependent traits of craven obedience to our dear Leader, love of political violence, multiple personality disorder, and distrust of plurals, I might have missed this signal opportunity. When it comes to Stereotypes, I bow before your mastery!!!