Revenge of the Idiots

There was a movie that came out in 1984 called Revenge of the Nerds. It was one of those typical 80’s movies about a group of college freshman “nerds” who battle against the campus jocks, most of whom were both dumb and seemed to delight in making the nerd’s lives difficult. It’s a campy movie, and it didn’t age well, but since I was 17 years old at the time and a giant nerd myself, it made a strong impression on me.

And I was definitely a nerd. Straight A’s but bad at sports, covered in pimples, terrible at talking to the opposite sex, and massively into computers, I pretty much could have had a starring role in the movie myself. I was such a nerd that when my high school math teacher was absent, he had ME teach the class for him while the substitute teacher sat at the desk reading a book!

As I got older, I came to realize what most people do, these kinds of teenage distinctions don’t make much of a difference in the real world. In the last 30 years I’ve also seen the stigma I experienced around being a nerdy kid become much less prevalent in young people, especially with the rise of smart phones, video games, and other technology that is so omnipresent in the population today.

But that doesn’t mean humans beings have really changed. There is still a fundamental difference between those who are curious and seek out knowledge, and those who are not and focus on other pursuits. It’s the nerds and the idiots rebranded for a new generation, and it’s pretty clear the idiots are winning at the moment.

So let’s explore how this difference applies to today’s politics, and what it can tell us about moving forward.

Who is MAGA?

The Republicans, and the Democrat’s too, are chock full of every kind of person. You can find examples of smart, dumb, generous, greedy, curious, and oblivious in every political party, along with many other combinations. With millions of people involved, there isn’t any sense in trying to exclude a particular type of person from a political ideology.

But there are trends. What we know about MAGA is that many of them fall into one or more of these categories:

• The Uneducated: As Trump proudly proclaims, “I love the uneducated”. These are people who are either uncurious in general, genuinely too stupid to learn new things, or have life circumstances such as trauma or other issues which have led them to not learn much beyond what is needed for their immediate survival.
  Not that this is always a person’s fault. The extreme cost of college, combined with a poor K-12 educational system (something Trump and MAGA are actively trying to make worse), all contribute to the issue. And the more barriers you put between people and education, the greater the number of uneducated you get, something the right would love to happen.

• The Prejudiced: If you hate another group of people just because of what they look like or their culture, you are far more likely to be a part of MAGA. The sources of prejudice are fairly well understood - early exposure to such ideas being the most common cause - but it is also much more visible in times of social unrest. A good example is from the 1920’s and 30’s when the crushing financial burden of the first World War left Germany in a deep depression, making them ripe for the explosion of anti-Semitism that came with the Nazi party.
  Being an average American in the last two decades, with a growing gap between the rich and the poor combined with a real wage decrease, has led many in this country down a similar dark path.

• The Frat Bros: These are the guys where the phrase “young, dumb, and full of cum” seems to describe them perfectly. With the #MeToo rise in awareness leading to greater female empowerment, and the loss of financial opportunities they once took for granted, many young men are experiencing what can only be described as culture shock at their current role in society. This has led them to follow people in the “manosphere” like Joe Rogan, Logan Paul, and Jordan Peterson, where they are fed a steady diet of a greatly distorted and false world view.

• The Greedy: Mixed into MAGA is a shocking number of outright scam artists and hucksters, with Trump being the king of this particular hill. If you really want to take from others without a single care about the cost to them, not only are you a sociopath, but you are probably part of MAGA too. If you do it well enough, Trump might even put you in his cabinet!

These are the most visible members of the MAGA coalition, although other groups such as fundamentalist Christians and “trad” wives might also be rightly included. And of course there is the existing Republican party, whose members have cynically allied themselves, at least for now, with MAGA as their own path to power and wealth.

Cabinet from Hell

Trump’s cabinet is absolutely full of MAGA stereotypes. The Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, acts like a way too old Frat Bro, apparently still chugging beers until he passes out. We also have the uneducated director of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the Dog Killer Barbie herself, who recently stated at a congressional hearing “habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country”. That is so wrong in so many ways it is shocking, since it actually means the complete opposite by guaranteeing everyone the right of due process.

And we can’t forget about the absolutely awful Elon Musk, who at first seems like a nerd, but in reality is just prejudiced and greedy, and seems intent on hurting as many people as he can for his own racist gains. Fortunately for all of us, Musk has too much education and paid too big of a price to really be a long term part of MAGA, and he seems to have made his exit after doing untold damage to the rest of us.

All of Trump’s cabinet are awful in some way, which is really confusing unless you consider what it is that MAGA really wants from Trump.

We aren’t speaking the same language

Many of my progressive friends say to me about the right, “I don’t understand why they don’t see what Trump is doing is bad for them?” The confusion on the part of my leftist friends comes down to this core difference between MAGA and us:

• Nuance versus Emotion.

Education, plus a general curiosity and willingness to learn, leads most people to understand the world is a complicated place. All important issues have nuance, whether you are talking about immigration, LGBTQI+ rights, industrial policy, or anything else being debated today. In forming an opinion, the left is often good at thinking about it from all sides, and then trying to come to a smart decision about the next right move. The educational process itself teaches people the right way to study an issue before forming an opinion, and that it is important to seek out genuine sources of information from trained professionals for the best data available.

But that’s not what MAGA is doing. They are basing their opinions on emotions, which is a much more core function of the human brain, and very appealing to the uneducated since it lets them form strong opinions without all the work involved to actually know anything about a subject. This has led most of them to ignore science, professionals, and all other real sources of information since none of these speak directly to their “feelings”.

Fox News really understands this about their audience, and are experts at appealing to feelings, but you have to give Trump credit for being the absolute master at conjuring up emotional arguments. Even though 99% of what he says is factually wrong, MAGA doesn’t care about any of that because the feelings he expresses resonate with their own emotions. Most often this is fear and anger, two of the strongest emotions human beings are capable of, so the facts don’t matter at all when they “feel” he is connecting to their own emotions on an issue.

If you listen to his rambling speeches and ignore the lies, they start to make sense in the context of his emotional appeal to his supporters. “trans women are assaulting little girls in bathrooms”, “immigrants are taking real American jobs”, or “immigrant gangs are eating pets” are all factually wrong, provably so, but they speak to what MAGA fears or is angry about in their uneducated and prejudiced state, and Trump is very good at tapping into that aspect of human behavior. He doesn’t care that his policies are hurting the very people who support him, because he knows that as long as he can fire up their feelings on an issue, the facts don’t matter at all.

Unfortunately, I see the left trying to debate these issues armed with real facts, and it always fails to make a difference. This is because they assume any MAGA who is listening wants to “learn” the actual truth the same way they would, as though the truth itself will break through the fears and anger they feel inside, but likely do not fully understand themselves. The left and the right are not speaking the same language, and most of them don’t seem to realize it as they shout past one another.

It’s a long way back

I hate to admit it, but some of this is the fault of the left. Consider the world the average MAGA voter experiences:

• The world has grown much more complicated, especially technologically.

• They are poorly educated and find all the changes frightening, and lack either the desire or ability to learn.

• Many of them have been exposed to horrific racist, anti-immigrant, and LGBTQI+ lies by their parents and peers, and deep down they have taken that in.

• Their financial well being continues to decline, along with the communities they are a part of.

• The only thing they are sure of is how they feel, and the only political party really speaking to those feelings are the Republicans.

We progressives often act with little sympathy towards the stupid, uneducated, and prejudiced. We lord over them our greater knowledge and wealth, feeling smugly superior in our better understanding of the world, and then make off hand comments that they should have “studied harder in school” when they lose their factory job to automation. Unfortunately, for us, they are American’s too, and being smart or dumb is a random factor of genetics, so our disdain for them is misplaced at best. It is of little surprise they hate the condescending left, and they are reacting emotionally to our treatment of them.

So what, as a society, should we be doing to move people away from MAGA ideology? There are short term and long term strategies:

SHORT TERM: Stop focusing on facts and reality, and speak their language of feelings. Telling MAGA that “actually, tariffs are a regressive tax on the poor” isn’t going to change their mind, but describing someone, ideally a person who looks like them (aka “a white male”), who ended up losing his home after being forced to close his business after 50 years when the price of things he sold tripled, might make more of an impact.

We have to start speaking in the language of emotions if we want to reach MAGA, and move the country in a progressive direction. It is often said about Republicans that they don’t seem to care about an issue unless it effects them personally, which makes perfect sense when you realize all of their decisions come from their emotional connections, not the facts.

LONG TERM: As any educator will tell you, improving education is the best tool for improving social norms and reducing prejudice. Free college would be a great start, and doing whatever it takes to improve K-12 everyplace in the country is absolutely critical. The more people we can get out of the uneducated column, the better off the country, and the Democratic party, will be.

We also have to find a way to bring back some equivalent of the trade schools of old. As society gets more technical and complex, more and more people will simply be unable to keep up and find themselves left behind. Stupid people need a career path too, and we are foolish if we don’t recognize that an increasing number of people simply don’t have the brain power to successfully navigate the world today. Trump, in his fumbling way, also seems to recognize this with his stated goal of “bringing back factories to the U.S.”, one of the biggest employment draws for the uneducated.

As leftists, we have a choice

I know it’s satisfying to watch MAGA suffer. Trump’s denial of FEMA aid to red states is a recent example, and a part of me feels happy that the “leopards are eating their faces”. It is hard not to feel righteous when the people who want to hurt you are hurt instead.

But it’s not a solution, and recent polling shows that even in those areas directly harmed by Trump’s policies, there is little weakening of his support among the MAGA faithful. We cannot assume that reality will change their minds, since their feelings are still being controlled by Trump, and he has an almost magical ability to access their fear and rage when he conjures up the mythical “others” who they are sure to blame for anything he does or happens around them.

Instead, let’s commit to trying to speak their language better, and little by little teach them ours. Support education whenever you can, be that voting for school improvements or being active in education reform. Lobby for free college for everyone. It may take a while, but money spent in this area will have long term benefits, even if you don’t have children.

Our expressing hatred and anger towards MAGA is playing their game, not ours. Let’s get back to what always works in the long term: compassion, understanding, finding common ground, and stuffing as much education as we can down as many throats as possible!