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this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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I have to admit that I have a bit of a failure of empathy when it comes to people who get sucked into cults. I understand many of them suffer from various psychological vulnerabilities, and if you're talking about someone with extremely low self-esteem or certainly an intellectual impairment, then fine, I get how they might be duped by a cult leader. But if you're basically mentally healthy, the signs of cultdom seem so obvious to me that I have a hard time understanding why they don't see them. I accept that they don't, but it's difficult for me to understand.
As such, this whole Trump thing has put me in a kind of political existential dilemma: I don't know that I will ever be able to see Trump supporters (~90% of conservatives) as mentally reliable people from now on. I don't mean to be dramatic; I go back and forth on this (hence it being a dilemma). At times, I tell myself, "it's not that bad, it can't be that bad," but then another poll comes out reporting that 3/4 of these folks really are forehead-deep in the Kool Aid.
The sad thing is this is my field! I work in mental health; I'm supposed to understand how this shit happens, and when it's a small group (like most cults) I...guess I just sort of write it off as an anomaly. But this is over 1/3 of the U.S. population. I've done a little research and the prevailing explanation seems to be groupthink and echo chambers—Trump supporters are just surrounded by each other and so when everyone you know seems to think these things are true, you reason that they can't all be wrong and agree based on that heuristic. But...really? No critical thinking?
I accept that this is a failing on my part though, because there are other examples of this in history. I guess seeing it play out in front of my eyes is just too surreal for me to handle. I don't know. I guess the scariest part is the idea that in theory this can happen to any group of people. Leftists are not immune, we just haven't had it happen to us yet. It's a truly depressing thought that our brains have this kind of innate software bug, but then again I guess it does explain a lot about human history.
To further your point, there's a reason Republican law makers and red states are attacking and demonizing education, and stepping it down. Critical thinking skills aren't really developed in a lot of curricula as it is, it's a lot of date memorization and fact regurgitation unless a student takes an AP or honors class or their school's equivalent.
A lot of people, especially politicians and law makers, don't seem to understand that the best tools to give students is the ability to think critically, do actual research (not just watch jimbob's YouTube rants), media literacy, and to question what their leaders tell them. The amount of times I've asked for sources from right-wingers and they give me links to articles and studies published by organizations with an obvious bias or funded by groups with an obvious agenda and they don't understand how that impacts their credibility.
The same thing with abortions. You really think Republican politicians care that much about abortions? Their loudest constituents might on "religious" grounds. But for them it helps prevent an educated voting population from growing. Forcing a woman to birth and care for a child impacts their ability to get an education.
A lot of it just comes down to educating people with the proper skills rather than preparing them for some standardized test.
I've made this observation myself in the past, and I agree that religious leaders and authoritarians have a clear reason for wanting an uneducated constituency. I'd even agree that conservative leaders are more likely than liberal ones to have these traits. However, I'm wary of thinking of my opposition in cartoonish stereotypes. I don't doubt that there's some truth to this, but that's a far cry from saying the GOP opposes education to keep their flock in line.
That being said,
to the extent that it's true some politicians do oppose education to keep their constituents dumb, I don't think it's because they don't understand the importance of critical thinking, etc. To the contrary, I think it's because they understand its importance that they oppose it.
Again, I'm dubious that most Republicans and/or anti-abortion folks have motivations this cartoonishly evil. I don't agree with them, but I understand why the pro-life argument is so compelling to a lot of people: they think they're saving a life and abortion is murder. That's all it really takes to get people who don't understand the science to be anti-abortion. It's not really about patriarchal control over women to most of them; they just honestly feel a fertilized human embryo = human being. To that end, I even understand why it makes single-issue voters of so many; if you accept the premise, abortion really is murder and pro-choice folks are monsters. Again, I don't agree, but I understand it.
Talking about politicians not understanding the importance includes all politicians. No Child Left Behind set the groundwork for standardized testing and removing funding from schools that performed poorly.
Republicans in power are constantly gerrymandering districts, lying about statistics they know are wrong like blue states having higher crime, claiming that CRT is being taught in public schools to indoctrinate their kids, punishing students who talk about their sexuality (especially if it's not heterosexual), ban books, incite insurrections, and they never call out extremist tterrorists for what they are, because they are their own creation. They literally called themselves domestic terrorists to downplay the extremist violence that has come out of their party.
The vast majority of domestic terrorism in the last 30 years comes from the far-right. From Timothy McVeigh, to El Paso.
I think you underestimate the powerful in the GOP. They're not uneducated. Rupert Murdoch studied philosophy and politics at Oxford and had a bust of Lenin in his dorm. DeSantis graduated magna cum laude from Yale and cum laude from Harvard Law.
These people aren't dumb, backwater reactionaries. You might think it's cartoonish, but there's a reason that so much extreme policies and laws have been spreading through red states. Roe v Wade was a 50 year precedent, and then Alito's opinion was leaked, something that rarely happens, which led to many states passing trigger laws.
I'm not saying everything is planned out and calculated. But it's not just a happy accident that more and more right wing politicians have embraced extremism.
Wasnt "No Child Left Behind" a Bush era policy?
It was an act passed through congress with overwhelming support from both sides and co-authored by Republicans and Democrats. Bush signed it into law just like the president does with most acts that pass with a vast majority of support.