Another scientific study is out that finds a correlation between higher intelligence and liberal political beliefs.
What? Smart people tend to be liberals? Golly! Knock me over with a feather.
The new study was by psychology researchers at the University of Minnesota. They examined siblings with the same upbringing, raised together, seeking to identify factors that influenced their development.
Specifically, the researchers studied 200 families with multiple children. In some families, the kids were biological siblings. In others, they were adopted. In some cases, they were a mix.
The key finding: within families, a sibling with a higher IQ is more likely to be politically liberal than a sibling of lower IQ. This was consistent in both biological and adoptive families.
The study concluded that being smarter “is correlated with a range of left-wing and liberal political beliefs.” It said the results imply that “being genetically predisposed to be smarter causes left-wing beliefs.”
The researchers were careful to add, “There is no law saying that intelligent people must always be supportive of particular beliefs or ideologies.” How intelligence affects us “is likely dependent on our environment and culture.”
Also, I should point out that we’re talking about psychology here, which is an inexact variety of science. Physics or chemistry, it ain’t.
One telltale characteristic of political conservatives — the perennially angry and aggrieved portion of the population — is taking offense about matters that don’t affect them personally in the slightest. In other words, they pout and whine about things that are none of their business.
Examples:
1. The very existence of homosexuality leaves conservatives indignant and distraught, even though they are not in any way bothered or inconvenienced. Or obliged to participate.
2. Conservatives find it unacceptable that some people are uncomfortable with, and want to change, their birth gender. Again, they are not remotely impacted, but choose to disapprove.
3. The reality that American society includes increasing numbers of non-whites leaves conservatives upset and distressed. They see this as a threat, but in fact are not threatened.
4. People coming to the US to seek better lives or find refuge from danger is, to conservatives, scandalous and criminal — when it should be seen as an obligation to manage humanely.
Why are conservatives like that? Why do they get so angry and exercised, going out of their way to take offense?
The easy answer is that empathy is weak in their mental wiring. But beyond that, right-wing behavior has deep roots.
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Much conservative anger is triggered by fear — fear of losing privileges, possessions, rights, etc., especially to people they deem unworthy. Rule-breakers are anathema to them.
In the conservative mind, the world is a place where (a) you are expected to play by the rules, and (b) ultimately, everyone gets what they deserve.
By that reasoning, the rich are entitled to their wealth because they must have morally earned it. Likewise, the poor surely are guilty of moral failures and deserve their fate.
Victims of crime or abuse are facing payback for probable transgressions. Gays: well, they made a choice.
Finding scapegoats does wonders to focus right-wing fear.
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Conservatives are authoritarian to the bone. Their instincts are heavily fascistic. Father figures appeal to them because of the promise of mental and physical safety.
Further, that implies the existence of an hierarchy below the supreme leader. Conservatives see themselves in the higher tiers, and they mentally relegate people they fear or dislike to lower tiers. Good people, superior people, are by rights in the upper tiers. Bad people, people who are different or undeserving, rank below.
Conservatives tell themselves that this is how the system works, and they simply accept it.
Is it any wonder they react so badly, and so predictably, when their worldview is challenged by libtards or facts?
As all rational people know, Donald Trump is a complete rotter. He is a lying, cheating, treasonous, twice-impeached, orange-tinted blowhard. He is a Fascist and a sexual predator and was a shockingly awful President on whose watch 400,000 people died of COVID-19. The man is a veritable turd in the national punchbowl.
At present, this self-described stable genius faces four indictments and 91 felony charges that could lead to severe penalties, including jail time. But, as much as it pains me to say, my gut tells me Trump will avoid accountability.
That’s because he has sufficient resources to keep the indictments tied up in court indefinitely. And, if he were cornered and unable to avoid consequences, he simply would flee the country. Russia or Saudi Arabia would give him asylum gladly.
Ultimately, I suspect, the Trump saga will end when he simply croaks. Possibly of a heart attack or a stroke induced by his famously-unhealthy diet.
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Ah, yes, the Trump diet.
According to a book by his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, The Donald often had a McDonald’s McMuffin for breakfast (sometimes egg, sometimes sausage) and was a fan of meatloaf sandwiches for lunch.
Very often, however, he went all day without eating. Then, for dinner, he would feast on fast food, with a special fondness for McDonald’s, Burger King, and KFC.
Lewandowski said Trump’s preferred order was “a full McDonald’s dinner of two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and a small chocolate shake.” That, Lewandowski noted, is a total of 2,430 calories.
Trump also is said to be fond of pizza (but usually does not eat the crust) and fried chicken. He also enjoys steak, cooked extra well done and served with ketchup.
When dining with others, Trump insists that his meal always differs from those of his guests. If their salads are served with a vinaigrette dressing, Trump gets Thousand Island.
Likewise, he is given larger portions of sauce and gravy than anyone else, and when others get a scoop of ice cream on their pie, Trump gets two scoops.
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With that kind of history, Trump’s fate is probably sealed. But back to the subject of his exit from the national stage.
I am, of course, exhilarated by the thought of a world without Trump, however it manifests.
And if I’m still around when he kicks the bucket… or if either the feds or the courts in New York or Georgia manage to make him pay for some of his crimes… I will proceed to the Jefferson town square and dance a jig.
It’s a fact that I have become more opinionated in my senior years.
Well, I am at peace in that regard because I have concluded, after due consideration, that I am in the right and fully justified — fully justified — in every instance.
Specifically, I have a host of pet peeves — personal vexations — regarding people, groups, industries, companies, brands, products, and other entities that annoy and offend me because they are either pompous, pretentious, arrogant, deceitful, manipulative, immoral, phony, overrated, overpriced, or some combination thereof.
Judge for yourself. In no particular order, I am vexed and irritated by…
● Anyone who identifies as conservative, GOP, right-wing, or MAGA. Those people crave Nazi-style authoritarianism. They are deranged.
● Fox News and the other vultures who fan the MAGA flames. Trump, the Christo-fascists, and all of those loathsome Republican politicians are in this category.
● The US health care system. By far the greatest enemy of public health is the profit-motivated system that controls US health care.
● Apple. I considered Apple phones once, as well as Mac PCs. I immediately disliked both; they force you to do things their way or not at all. Screw that. (My low opinion of Apple was further confirmed by the Mac vs. PC ad campaign of two decades ago. The ads were smug and too clever by half. Just like Apple.)
● Keurig. Those wretched, landfill-choking single-serve plastic brew cups should be illegal. A pox on anyone selling or buying the abominable things.
● Bottled water. Humanity has no need whatsoever for bottled water. For that matter, humanity has little need for plastic bottles.
● Starbucks. Snooty, ritualistic posturing over a stupid cup of coffee is silly, but, unfortunately, profitable.
● Ralph Lauren products (except for the Chaps brand, which is solid). Ralph Lauren clothing is perfectly fine, but it isn’t god-sent. I would like to slap Ralph Lauren with one of his $90 Polo ball caps.
● Ticketmaster. They have ruined a useful service through price-gouging and underhanded business practices. Dismantle the company.
● Songs by The Smiths or Morrissey. Why they have fans is beyond me, when apparently, the lyrics were written by five-year-olds and the melodies were on-the-fly afterthoughts in the recording studio.
● Zoos, circuses, aquariums, animal parks and other institutions (e.g., horse and greyhound racing) that exploit and keep animals in captivity.
I could continue — reality television, spam, coal mining — but you get the idea: I am an opinionated guy.
So be it. As Popeye eloquently said, “I yam what I yam, and that’s all I yam.”
So, regarding the ills visited on the country by right-wing malice and wrongheadedness, what are the solutions? How can we pull out of this tailspin?
I have 11 recommendations on that:
1. Vote in every election, and under no circumstances vote Republican. No excuses, no complacency allowed. If the conservative agenda prevails, the America you know will be gone. Make no mistake, the MAGA crowd and their apologists would take this country down.
No one who identifies as Republican is fit for office. We need to keep voting them out until their influence is neutralized. Once out of power, they will fade away, like the Nazis in Germany.
2. Get the money out of politics. Ban private and corporate funding of political campaigns at every level, and use public money instead. That will stop corporations and the wealthy from buying influence.
3. Cut military spending to the bone, and then reduce it again, and then slash it some more. Of the 10 countries with the largest military budgets, we spend more than the other nine combined. We are not at war. Those billions merely enrich the arms industry.
4. Tax the rich. Under Reagan, the top personal income tax rate was reduced from 73 percent to 28 percent, and the tax on capital gains (where the rich stash their money) was cut to 20 percent. To make rich people and corporations pay their fair share, hike the tax rate on capital gains, and return the corporate tax rate to 30-50 percent, as it was under Eisenhower.
Corporations and rich people hoard their wealth anyway. A better use of those riches is feeding and housing the poor.
5. Tax the churches. Let’s be clear: churches are businesses. Organized religion is a money-making enterprise. But churches are exempt from taxation because, well, uh… umm…
Churches hoard their wealth anyway. A better use of those riches is repairing infrastructure and eliminating student debt.
6. Institute Medicare for all. The country’s healthcare system is an abomination and a failure. Around the world, socialized medicine work smoothly and efficiently.
7. Codify Roe v. Wade into federal law to affirm a woman’s right to have an abortion. Making it federal will prevent red state politicians from interfering.
8. Abolish the Electoral College. The concept of one person, one vote is a better idea.
9. Abolish the Senate filibuster so that a simple majority of 51 votes can decide an issue, instead of the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster.
Actually, the Senate itself is a useless institution, and the government could function just fine without it, so…
10.Enact strict federal gun control laws that ban assault weapons and restrict and regulate firearms. Last year in the US, an average of 53 people a day were shot dead. That’s a disgrace.
My personal preference, admittedly a pipe dream, is to outlaw private ownership of firearms, confiscate all guns, melt them down, and use the material to manufacture, say, toys and appliances.
If you aren’t a soldier or a cop, you don’t need a gun. Grow up, stop compensating, and do your part for the greater good.
11. And finally, convict Donald Trump for inciting insurrection, racketeering, election interference, stealing classified documents, falsifying records, making false statements, and any other of his crimes the law deems appropriate. Sentence him accordingly, and lock him up.
At the same time, start prosecuting Trump’s co-conspirators — all the underlings, relatives, lawyers, and politicians who have aided and abetted him.
The following is a political rant. I haven’t posted a proper tirade in a while, and I feel the need.
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As a young man, I was confident America’s future was bright. It was the era of the Kennedys, the Warren Court, the Civil Rights Act, the moon landings.
Yes, we endured Vietnam and the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, but America stood for fairness, decency, and righting wrongs. We were headed in the right direction.
When the USSR imploded, there was genuine hope that democracy might arise in the region. Instead, corruption prevailed. We got Putin and the oligarchs.
And at home, we got Reagan and the conservatives. As their harsh and negative agenda was revealed, my hopes for the future faded.
Sure enough, the country’s drift to the right was a disaster. Beginning with Reagan, the Republicans did away with sensible taxation of the wealthy — removing the incentive for rich people to invest their money instead of hoarding it.
The conservatives also allowed business and industry to buy control of government, because, as authoritarians, they see that as the natural order.
They championed unfettered capitalism, which paved the way for today’s obscene wealth inequality. US society today is just a modern form of feudalism wherein a small group of entrenched elites controls business, government, and you.
Moreover, if you truly want to look at the big picture, the conservatives neutered NASA and put an end to meaningful space exploration. In other words, with global warming accelerating, and mitigation efforts almost nonexistent, we stopped looking for ways to save ourselves.
In short, the US is in a tailspin precipitated by the conservatives, full stop.
In Reagan’s time, the typical right-winger was intolerant and narrow-minded, yet, in most respects, rational. But over time, the worst of them prevailed. Today, conservatives have moved so far to the right, are so wild-eyed and radicalized, they literally have more in common with fascism than democracy.
The radical right is not popular among younger voters, so the GOP brand is rapidly losing ground. Thus, the party believes it must cheat to win. They resort to gerrymandering, voter suppression, court-packing, and blatant lies.
And — oh, the irony — they are poor at governing. Consider how the two parties have performed over the last 50 years, under a Republican president for 28 years and a Democrat for 22:
Stock market growth was 109 percent under the GOP, 992 percent under the Democrats.
24 million jobs were created under the GOP, 42 million under the Democrats.
Average personal income growth was 0.6 percent under the GOP, 2.2 percent under the Democrats.
The Gross Domestic Product grew an average of 2.7 percent under the GOP, 4.1 percent under the Democrats.
I repeat: conservatives are the cause of our problems and failings. GOP voters don’t know that, or don’t believe it, because their brains have been addled by Fox News and the rest of the right-wing propaganda machine.
Which means that all of us — the wacko conservatives and the normal people — are trapped in an endless loop of electing enough conservatives to perpetuate the loop.
While the US was screwing everything up, the nations of Europe were evolving appropriately and intelligently. Today, they surpass us in every category that measures the well-being and quality of life of the people. With the exception of the Brits, who are a social and political trainwreck like us, Europeans live better than Americans by far.
Which this chart nicely illustrates.
Funny how people talk about American exceptionalism as a good thing.
In my next post, I have suggestions on how to mitigate the ills that plague us.
Back in the middle of the previous century, when I graduated from the University of Georgia, the commencement speaker was Ernest Vandiver, a former governor of Georgia. What inspiring words he delivered that day, I can’t say. Like most kids on such occasions, my attention was not focused on the speech from the podium.
Not that it mattered. Most commencement addresses are lame, banal, and forgettable anyway.
Not long ago, however, a keeper was delivered by Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker at Northwestern University in Evanston. Although many in the audience probably weren’t listening, he made some solid points.
Here are Pritzker’s remarks, edited to highlight the highlights.
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Today, graduates, I want to invoke a seminal piece of twenty-first century culture to help send you forward on the right path in life. I am, of course, talking about the Emmy-award-winning sitcom known as “The Office” — which in its two-hundred-episode run gave us all the wisdom you need to make your way in this world.
I’ll offer you the first one now:
PowerPoints are the peacocks of the business world; all show, no meat. — Dwight Schrute
Sometimes, when I see a news story on a company like Theranos or WeWork, where a charismatic CEO has a clever pitch that fools a lot of intelligent people into investing their money, or when politicians give flashy pitches with catchy slogans, I think about Dwight Schrute’s lesson for life.
Ask questions. Demand answers. Do your own research. Trust people with a lot of life experience. Be skeptical.
Whenever I’m about to do something, I think ‘Would an idiot do that?’ and if they would, I do not do that thing. — Dwight Schrute
The entire efficacy of this incredibly useful piece of advice hinges upon your ability to pick the right idiot. I wish there was a foolproof way to spot idiots. But, counter-intuitively, some idiots are very smart. They can dazzle you with words and misdirection. They can get promoted above you at work. They can even be elected President.
If you want to be successful in this world, you have to develop your own idiot detection system. As part of the responsibilities of being your commencement speaker, I am going to share mine.
The best way to spot an idiot? Look for the person who is cruel. Let me explain.
When we see someone who doesn’t look like us, or sound like us, or act like us, or love like us, or live like us, the first thought that crosses almost everyone’s brain is rooted in either fear or judgment or both. That’s evolution. We survived as a species by being suspicious of things we aren’t familiar with.
In order to be kind, we have to shut down that animal instinct and force our brain to travel a different pathway.
Empathy and compassion are evolved states of being. They require the mental capacity to step past our most primal urges.
This may be a surprising assessment, because somewhere along the way in the last few years, our society has come to believe that weaponized cruelty is part of some well-thought-out master plan.
Cruelty is seen by some as an adroit cudgel to gain power. Empathy and kindness are considered weak. Many important people look at the vulnerable only as rungs in a ladder to the top.
I’m here to tell you that when someone’s path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society.
They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct. They never forged new mental pathways to overcome their own instinctual fears. And so, their thinking and problem-solving will lack the imagination and creativity that the kindest people have in spades.
Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true: the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.
When the world seems to be spinning and out of your control, inertia can set in. So, the absolute best thing you can do is start to make decisions. Even small ones. Just get yourself moving. Pick something you can tackle and do it.
Let your small decisions beget medium decisions, which will beget big decisions. Some of your decisions will be brilliant in retrospect. Others will be less so. If you make a mistake, apologize, and move on.
Talk to people you trust, and more importantly, listen to them. Be willing to change your mind when someone makes a good argument. But avoid that paralyzing inertia at all costs. Because NOT making a decision IS making a decision. And you won’t like how that turns out.
Most importantly, when facing a crisis, pick one value you are going to hold yourself accountable to, and then, every time you face a new choice about what direction you should take, ask yourself which of the options in front of you is most consistent with that core, guiding value.
I know that for this class, especially, COVID loomed very large. You were robbed of a chunk of a college experience you very much deserved. I’m sure then and now, it feels very unfair.
We don’t get a say in what part of history our lives drop in on. The Great Depression. World War II. The Cold War. The Vietnam War. The COVID Pandemic. Every generation grows up scared or scarred by something. You are not unique in that regard.
Here’s the upside. Although you will face a great many challenges in life, most of them will pale in comparison to the challenge of facing a deadly global pandemic. COVID has made you stronger and gave you a unique set of armor. Use it well.
I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them. — Andy Bernard
During the very worst days of the pandemic, there was a group of about twenty people who were part of our Governor’s office quarantine bubble. While most people stayed at home, my staff came into the State of Illinois building in person every day to help keep the levers of government moving.
We worked together for 14 hours a day, tracking down masks and gloves and testing supplies, debating mitigations, tracking data, preparing for daily press conferences. Sometimes we stared into the abyss together.
Anyone who has been part of a group like that — good people working closely together in a crisis — will tell you that the bonds that you develop with the people in the foxhole with you are some of the strongest you will ever form in your life.
One day in April of 2020, after weeks of punishing work, I decided to gather the small, quarantined team together at the end of a long day for a much-needed morale boost. The Governor’s office at the State of Illinois building was on the 16th floor overlooking an interior atrium. If you dropped something from the top floor, where the Governor’s office was, it would land 16 floors down.
We ordered some food and gathered everyone. We were the only people in the building. Someone put on some music, and for a little bit of time, we shared some gallows humor.
At some point, a staffer suggested we all make paper airplanes out of copier paper and see who could successfully launch their plane off the 16th floor balcony and into the atrium and land it in the middle of the first-floor lobby below.
I remember how hard I laughed watching all these serious people — press secretaries and deputy governors and policy advisors — try and construct the perfect paper airplane and get frustrated at their many failed launches.
A lot of the worst days of COVID are still a blur for me — the stress and the worry that seemed to consume my life have just blended together. But I can remember, with unusual clarity and warmth, that hour or so on the balcony of the 16th floor, flying paper airplanes with my battle-worn compatriots.
So, I assure you that your nostalgia for certain times in your life won’t be defined by when the thing happened, but by who you were in it with. If there are people around you who love you, who can make you smile when times are hard, and make you laugh when the world seems lost, then you are in the good old days.
Ultimately, “The Office” was a show about a bunch of imperfect people trying to find their way together. And if that’s not a metaphor for life, then I don’t know what is.
You will figure out your way, Class of 2023. I beseech you to remember the lessons of “The Office.” Be more substance than show. Set aside cruelty for kindness. Put one foot in front of the other even when you don’t know your way. And always try and appreciate the good old days when you are actually in them.
And remember what Dwight Schrute said:
You only live once? False! You live every day! You only die once.
Thank you.
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Pritzker, by the way, recently signed a law that prevents the banning of books in Illinois public libraries.
The law provides that, in order to receive state funding, libraries must adopt the American Library Association’s “Library Bill of Rights,” which stipulates that materials cannot be removed from library shelves because of “partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”
In recent years, the defining characteristic of the conservative/GOP/MAGA types has become their willingness to tell blatant lies to support a position, even when the lies are known to be lies. More and more of them employ this crass Trumpian technique every day.
No surprise there. Honestly, I can’t think of any defining characteristic of that crowd that isn’t negative. Meanwhile, their redeeming qualities are… elusive.
In addition to being openly dishonest, the MAGA people are fearful, closed-minded, easily led, and easily offended. They get upset about matters that literally do not affect them, such as the existence of gay and trans people.
They also retreat easily into groupthink. This is how they get angry at beer, rainbows, and the “woke agenda.” All of which indicates that the MAGAs are guided by emotion, not intellect.
But there is one issue on which this bunch has, in fact, used reasoning to take a position. Ironically, they arrived at the wrong conclusion, but at least they reached it using rational thought.
The issue is abortion.
Now, if one strongly rejects the idea of abortion, one is right to abstain from it. Disapprove of booze? Don’t drink. But, for psychological reasons, conservatives are compelled to force their beliefs on others.
So, they latched onto the useful claim that abortion is murder. It is, of course, no such thing. Abortion amounts to discarding an acorn, not cutting down a tree.
Abortion is a straightforward procedure to terminate a pregnancy, using medication or surgery, either because of health concerns or because the woman chooses not to be pregnant.
Maybe she can’t afford to raise a child, or fears domestic violence, or the child was conceived through rape or incest, or the pregnancy isn’t viable. Maybe she feels she is too young, or too old, or she wants to get an education, or she isn’t ready for the responsibility.
The reason, mind you, doesn’t matter. A woman cannot — cannot — be forced to be pregnant. And we know how to terminate pregnancies with relative ease and safety, so, end of story.
Still, the anti-choice people reached their position via a reasoning process. They came to an erroneous conclusion, but the effort is noted.
Recently, due to ongoing ethics problems regarding the Supreme Court Justices, the Senate Judiciary Committee invited Chief Justice Roberts to meet and discuss ways to enforce the rules of conduct for the justices. There are rules, you see, but no mechanisms to enforce them.
Roberts declined the invitation. Instead, he sent the committee a letter signed by all nine justices declaring that everything is just fine the way it is, so go scratch.
Not a good attitude when polls show that a mere 25 percent of Americans have a “great deal” of confidence in the Supreme Court. Three-fourths of the country, in other words, does not.
Count me with the three-fourths. I lost all respect for the Court during the presidential election of 2000, when the court halted the counting of votes in Florida, thus awarding the presidency to George Bush the younger. That was contrived and nakedly partisan. The country deserved better from the Court.
It still does. The ethics problems, and the above-mentioned letter, are evidence that the justices feel free to do what they want because they consider themselves to be, if not above the law, then in little danger of facing consequences.
As it stands, impeachment is the only way to punish a justice for misconduct. That will not happen until Democrats hold a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate.
Meanwhile, if Clarence Thomas accepts hundred of thousands of dollars worth of free flights around the world, yachting vacations, and other lavish gifts from Republican fatcat Harlan Crow, and Thomas doesn’t even disclose those gifts as required by law, we have no recourse.
If fatcat Crow buys real estate from Thomas, including the home of Clarence’s mama, where she apparently still lives rent-free, nothing can be done.
If the head of a law firm that regularly argues cases before the Supreme Court buys $2 million worth of property from Neil Gorsuch, we can only watch.
If the wife of Chief Justice Roberts becomes a “legal recruiter” who makes millions by placing well-connected attorneys and prominent former politicians at the right law firms, you can label it crass influence-peddling, but you can’t stop her.
Easily the worst offender, the justice guilty of the most egregious ethical lapses we know about so far, is Clarence Thomas.
His wife Ginni is an outspoken right-wing activist who from 2003-2007 was paid almost $700,000 in salary by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Clarence declared her income as “none” for those years.
When reporters found out about it 10 years later, he amended his tax forms. But Thomas has never recused himself from a case in which Heritage was involved.
To this day, Ginni Thomas publicly insists that Democrats rigged the 2020 presidential election and stole it from Trump. She is fully on board with all the absurd MAGA and QAnon conspiracy theories. But Clarence has declined to recuse himself from any cases related to the January 6 insurrection.
The latest revelation: over a period of from one to four years, Harlan Crow paid the tuition of Thomas’ nephew at two Georgia boarding schools. The tuition at one of the schools was reported to be over $6,000 per month. Thomas did not report any of the gifts, which is a violation of the law.
Clarence Thomas is a corrupt man, a disgrace to the Judicial Branch, and unfit to serve. If he were not, if he possessed even a shred of integrity, he would resign and disappear.
If only we had been given a heads-up about the man’s true nature and lack of character years ago, before he was confirmed as a member of the Court…
Pity the lowly bigot, who is not only a terrible human being, but also an embarrassment. Hating on an entire group — gays, blacks, immigrants — is mean, nasty, juvenile, and unjustifiable. I call that embarrassing.
Bigotry reveals a lot about the bigot. It says the hater is either dumb and suggestible or has mental and/or emotional issues.
Which is why it pains me to question whether I have a bigotry problem myself.
I like to think I’m a sensible and realistic person. But it’s a fact that I am deeply offended by — appalled, angered, outraged by — political conservatives. ALL of them. Anyone who identifies as Republican, right-wing, or MAGA.
Actually, I believe the correct acronym now is MAGAGA — Make American Great and Glorious Again. That’s the knee-slapper the Orange Gasbag used when he announced for president again.
But to stay on point, since my stated position re the GOP amounts to enmity toward the entire group, that seems uncomfortably close to bigotry. Hmm.
Let’s consider the facts. Conservatives are wrong on essentially every issue. Their beliefs are selfish and heinous to a cartoonish degree.
These people hate, resent, or are suspicious of anyone who isn’t white and Christian. They cling to their guns and religion. They’ve learned they can embrace, without consequence, outrageous falsehoods and the patently absurd. They rail about stolen elections, immigrant caravans, crisis actors, and imaginary pedophile rings.
And when you hear about Jewish space lasers or drinking the blood of infants in satanic rituals, you can be sure the source is MAGAGA-land.
Then there’s the fact that, if some conservatives don’t deserve scorn, why do they still call themselves conservatives? Have they repented, cut the ties, and walked away? They have not.
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