Conservatives Just Aren’t Smart Enough to Know the Difference!

However, the blanket statement relates to those conservatives that are both intelligent and lacking thereof. While some may choose to substitute the word “smart” with terms such as “insightful” or “perceptive”, it comes down to the fact that they simply cannot tell the difference between valid truth, facts and data and their own slanted view of the world. No matter what they say, they feed that inner fear of just about everything to grow their prejudice and hate.

This topic is one that has often confused many liberals. We research, fact check, and verify and then when we give the conservatives the information they simply reject it. You see, it doesn’t play into their small-minded idea of what is happening and therefore, doesn’t exist. Another thing that they don’t seem to be able to do is to differentiate between what is a viable and respectable source versus the wacko, conspiracy theory driven sources that they use. This became completely evident in a recent conversation that I had with a family member when I mentioned that I have always held respect for Bob Woodward as an investigative reporter, journalist and writer, and that I had purchased his new book, “Fear.” Her response? Why don’t you also buy the book (and I won’t credit it), which was a book written by a former Fox member known for propaganda and conspiracy theories. When I tried to explain that these two weren’t even on the same plain of existence, she wouldn’t accept it.

You see, conservatives simply can’t tell the difference between reality and their own version of what is going on. They don’t know credible versus outlandish, verifiable versus fiction.

A secondary portion of the conversation led to her absolute belief in the concept of “innocent until proven guilty.” This also paints a broad spectrum as it opens the doors for everything from Trump to RussiaGate. However, in just a few breaths more, this same woman began to rant about Hillary Clinton and how the Clintons should be in jail. It didn’t matter that HRC sat in front of Congress for eleven hours and after multiple investigations and millions of dollars, they couldn’t find anything to prosecute for.

These situations are just two examples of the total hypocrisy that many of the conservatives hold.

Since When Is Being Dumb a Good Thing?

One of the key factors that I have noted is that a majority of the Trump Trolls are very cloistered. Many have rarely been out of their own state, let alone out of the country and seem to share a commonality of not being aware of what is going on in the world. Their closed-lens view is therefore influenced by those that they see and interact with and this is complemented with their restricted information stream, which is typically only Fox.

I cover the topic of the methodology of their bizarre sense of self in my article: Trump Has Made People Proud to be Stupid and Racist

“We have seen this before. It is the same type of rhetoric that occurred in every single fascist regime. They blindly embrace their own version of hate while saying it’s ok for leaders to lie, cheat, steal, alienate our allies and make friends with enemy countries (aka ‘Russia’) that have long held disdain for the United States. They have a litany of concocted stories from their conservative sources regarding liberals and spew them every chance that they can get.

In a Vice article, Trump Is Making America So Goddamn Dumb, they state:

‘Engaging with Trump’s rhetoric very often means disproving obviously untrue things. No, the Department of Justice does not have records showing immigrants are more likely than native-born Americans to be terrorists. No, Democrats did not create Trump’s family separation policy. His inauguration crowd was not larger than Barack Obama’s. Three million ballots were not illegally cast in the 2016 election. The problem is, no matter how easily reporters and experts can disprove Trump’s statements, a portion of the president’s base will believe him over all other evidence — that’s how you got a poll from 2017 finding that a quarter of registered voters believed his nonsensical voter fraud claims.’

The sheer volume of idiocy that seems to flow from the mouths of the supporters as well as Trump has developed only one type of job: “fact checkers”, and they can’t seem to keep up with the misinformation that continues to distract from the real truths. They believe the garbled, mishmash, extremist lies because, in their universe, Trump’s single syllable, repetitive word salad is what they look up to.”

I Got Mine — To Hell with the Rest of You

One of the most interesting and yes, sickest aspects of conservative thinking is that unless a problem specifically effects them personally, they have absolutely no empathy or understanding that a problem exists for others. In their minds, the individuals that might be suffering brought the difficulties on to themselves, and they have a litany of self-righteous reasons that only make sense to them.

The supporters of Trump seem to have no understanding of history, the economy, or even how health insurance really works. All they know is the banner rantings that they parrot and share with each other, and as time progresses, these comments become more and more bizarre. Examples of this have occurred in everything from their belief in the Clintons running a child slave ring out of a Pizza shop to the fact that they were clueless in understanding that having no health insurance costs the taxpayers more than the standard that we have lived with for years in sharing in the cost within our own insurance structures.

These individuals have a demand to return to some unknown time of the past where they think things were better, but when you ask them, they really don’t know when that was or how life had gotten worse. They just know, in their little itty bitty minds, that somehow they were improved way-back-when.

Because they know little or nothing of history, they are also not equipped with any reasoning abilities in understanding the traits of fascism that the current administration has done as well as a complete lack of care that the Republicans in power have crossed over every barrier and have been doing blatantly illegal things.

Illegal only matters when it’s a Democrat that’s doing it. Republicans are not only immune but are rewarded for it.

The government approved media (aka “Fox”) is no different than pre-WW II Germany. While other channels scramble to try to present both sides, conservatives continue to rant that all other media is liberal. What this translates to is “you aren’t telling the story that I want to hear, therefore, it’s a lie.”

Conservatives: Sudden Trending Patriotism

I am from a military family and one of the things that we were taught is that patriotism isn’t hanging a flag or wearing a pin. Patriotism means supporting each other when needed and also standing up a protesting when we see that our country is not complying with the will of the people or even harming the people. It should be no shock to anyone that many of these conservatives that support Trump, just discovered that red-white-and-blue are the color of the flag. In some cases, it may be because they have kids or grandkids that have entered military service and suddenly, they are the most outspoken about what the rest of us can and cannot do or say regarding the topic of “patriotism.”

I credit my family and my school system for ensuring that we had a good education on pre and post WWII as well as fascism in general. If any of the conservatives had bothered to open a book they would also recognize that extreme patriotism is one of the signs of fascism. We find them screaming about those that take-a-knee in protest against police brutality that Black Americans experience, while supporting those that refuse to serve gay couples in restaurants. They have a rather twisted view of what it is to be patriotic and it has nothing to do with reality.

In my article: Conservatives Suddenly Become Patriotic? The Fake Amerikkkans

“These conservatives made the decision to impress upon the rest of the country what their idea of patriotism is, while not realizing how absolutely stupid they sound and with pure ignorance of the Constitution, our rights and our history.”

There is a psychological aspect of why conservatives feel this way and as everything, it is a complex issue. Psychologists have boiled it down to some basic ideologies that include lack of being exposed to other cultures/beliefs, living in an existence of fear that others are going to take everything from you, and lack of accountability for making bad personal decisions so that they blame others (to name a few). If this sounds like that conservative Trump Troll neighbor, it’s because this is the world that they live in.

While millions of people here in the U.S. and around the globe protested in the Women’s Day march, the conservatives were screaming that we were all paid by George Soros, didn’t have jobs, or were leaving trash everywhere. They accuse each protest of being a mob or riot, when protest is part of the American process, and now their discussion is turning to an even darker side which includes accusations against the Dem representatives that they are responsible for these so-called “riots” and should be arrested.

There is NO changing the extreme and twisted mind of the conservatives, but the good news is: we outnumber them. They may be the loudest and most obnoxious, and the media simply can’t help themselves but to cover their unacceptable antics, but we as a people need to stand up to them.

 (S. Novi is a journalist that worked in the media and continues to seek out truth and integrity. A liberal and one that is suspicious of cults and empty promises. Her posts originate at Medium.com. She is a contributor to CityWatch.)

-cw