A FB friend of mine posted this thing he found. It's an explanation of why otherwise intelligent people might be Trump followers. Read it, tell me what you think -- is it correct?
--Kim
I read a good explanation in the Quora website about why supposedly 'smart' people turn into Trumpists. Here it is ...
" from Feifei Wang (author) ...
Q. Why do otherwise intelligent people like, and/or support Trump?
A. I think at this point, we can't simply attribute the popularity of Trump to personal failings, such as a lack of intelligence or bigotry. I think we need to look at the popularity of Trump as a social phenomenon, and it'll probably help us identify some larger social issues that provided an environment that allowed Trump to become Trumpism.
We could look at this from the perspective of cults. There has been plenty of research done on why people follow crazy cults like Heaven's Gate or Scientology. While I'm certainly not an expert, I did notice similarities between Trump followers and cultists.
For example, people who join cults are usually the ones who aren't happy with their own life and have searched for beliefs and organizations that could "enlight" them. Many people who had joined Heaven's Gate cult were already very familiar with spiritualism and alternative beliefs. Many had expressed feelings of wanting more than just mundane life. Many had sought out alternative spiritual practices before they joined Heaven's Gate. So these people didn't just listen to Applewhite once and gave up their entire worldly possessions to join a suicide cult.
I think the same can be said for loyal Trump supporters. They aren't happy with their life. They felt left out by mainstream Republicans and Democrats. They had already sought out similar groups on the internet or within their local communities, such as incels, manosphere, nationalism, groups that promote "traditional values" (conservative churches), etc. Trump didn't invent any of these sentiments. Trump normalized it by becoming the president on a racist, misogynist, anti-LGBTQ, and xenophobic platform.
Of course, most of their problems can be attributed to late-stage capitalism and lack of social programs, but these problems are difficult to explain, and solutions are even more complicated. It is much easier to blame black and brown people for their problems instead of actually thinking about why CEOs make almost 400 times in salary than average workers.
Secondly, it is much easier and safer to believe in conspiracy theories. Now, I know it's a bit counterintuitive, but all of this relate to the Just-World hypothesis. The just-World hypothesis is a cognitive bias that believes the world is ultimately just and morality will be balanced out one way or another. In other words, good deeds will be rewarded; bad deeds will be punished. And, more importantly, if good things happen to you, you must be a good person; if bad things happen to you, you must have done something to deserve it.
That's why in most societies, poverty is considered a moral failure of individual people instead of a systemic failure of a society. If you are poor, you must be lazy, you must make bad choices, and your poverty is your punishment. Poverty will never happen to me because I'm a good person, and I make good decisions. And the world is just.
Most religions promote this idea. So the more religious you are, the more likely you believe the idea of the Just-World hypothesis in the form of "Karma" or "divine intervention."
Many Trump supporters aren't happy with their lives, which isn't unique to them. Most humans aren't happy with their lives, regardless. But because Trump supporters bought into the idea that if your life sucks, you are a bad person, and they, of course, wouldn't think of themselves as bad people. This creates a cognitive dissonance that makes them very uncomfortable, and they must resolve.
And their way to resolve this is conspiracy theories. So they get to be good people, and they had bad things happen to them because there is a conspiracy, a democrat Jewish underground child trafficking cannibalism cabal that infiltrated every level of the government, and this communist evil globalist organization is actually working against them by promoting the gay agenda.
Imagine the kind of ego boost it would give you. You are actually that important for this super powerful global shadow government to go after you personally, to ruin your life. And it is your obligation to fight against it.
In an instant, you resolve your cognitive dissonance; you still get to be a good person even if your life sucked and the world is supposed to be a just place; your life becomes purposeful with a higher calling, and you find other like-minded people; and most importantly, and this is where Trump comes in, you feel empowered when the liberals react strongly to pretty much everything Trump says or does.
These people, these supposed "smart" coastal elites who never pay attention to you, now listen to you, even fear you. You see your words coming out of Fox News pundits and how that hurt the libs. You see, progressive news channels feature your words, and people take their time to debate against you. And you thought, "Finally, finally, I matter."
Being a Trump supporter is like being in a cult. It has nothing to do with intellect. It has everything to do with an emotional need to be seen, to matter, to belong to, and to be taken seriously. And that is what society, specifically traditional and social media, have been giving them for the past 8 years: attention. They're no longer random low-wage white trash nobody gave a fuck about. They're a force to be reckoned with.
There's nothing wrong with having those emotional needs. We all want to be seen, to matter, to belong to a community, and to be taken seriously. These people's very legitimate emotional needs are manipulated into hatred and bigotry. And they can't get out of that toxic environment because they got their emotional fix from Fox News and being a Trump supporter...."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment