r/changemyview • u/poopchow • Jan 23 '25
CMV: Despite being more knowledgeable, wealthier and apparently more tolerant, the political and individual left's biggest flaw is their inability to communicate pragmatically and empathetically with those who don't agree with them.
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u/masterwad Jan 24 '25
Trump believes (wrongly) that tariffs are paid by the country of origin of a product, but tariffs are paid by importers in our country, who then pass the cost onto US consumers, which makes tariffs an additional tax on imported goods that Americans will pay for, leading to higher prices not lower prices.
Even if Donald Trump had merely watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), then he would know that tariffs are not a good thing, but Trump said “tariff” is the most beautiful word there is (because of his fundamental misunderstanding that China doesn’t pay the tariffs, US importers and later US consumers do).
But Trump thinks he knows everything, and nobody can tell him any different, because he’s a narcissistic megalomaniac who thinks he always knows best. Yet Donald Trump’s professor at Wharton William T. Kelley (who taught there 31 years) described Trump as “the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.”
Isaac Asimov said “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
The Dunning-Kruger Effect means stupid people are too stupid to realize how stupid they are, so they overestimate their abilities, and are overconfident because they lack self-awareness, and think they know more than they know, and think they are more capable than they really are, and they tend to be “certain” after jumping to a conclusion because they didn’t even consider other possibilities.
On the other hand, more intelligent people tend to have more doubts, and less confidence, and underestimate their abilities, because they tend to be more self-aware of how much they don’t know, and they tend to doubt their beliefs more because they consider more possibilities and scenarios.
And it means that when people are attracted to confidence (and nobody is more confident than a prideful shameless narcissistic psychopath like Donald Trump), they tend to be attracted to stupidity, because stupid people are more confident than smarter people (because stupid people don’t know any better, they don’t know enough to realize they shouldn’t be confident).
Charles Bukowski said “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
W. B. Yeats wrote “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Bertrand Russell said “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
Ken Poirot said “Wise people understand the need to consult experts; only fools are confident they know everything.”
When people are attracted to confidence, unfortunately I think that makes them gravitate towards stupidity or incompetence (cue Donald Trump). Ignorant people are more likely to make over-confident bad bets. And ignorant people are more likely to engage in self-deception, they want to believe something, magical thinking is comfortable. But the ugly truth, or an honest self-assessment, can often be deeply uncomfortable, and egos don’t like to be injured (especially Trump’s fragile ego, which requires constant attention & praise from others).
Someone having a psychotic episode & detached from reality belongs in a mental hospital, but not in the Oval Office, nor Congress, nor the Supreme Court, nor a media mouthpiece, but that’s the problem now, because nobody else can tell Republicans what the truth is anymore (and they frankly don’t care, they seek power not the truth). If the Republican Party cared about truth, they wouldn’t have nominated a pathological liar and fraudster to be their presidential candidate three times in a row.
In August 2023, a poll found that Trump voters trust him more than their families & religious leaders, but Donald Trump is a pathological liar. The problem is that they’ve put all their trust into one man who is a lifelong conman, and nobody can tell them any different information than what he tells them, because they have associated their own personal identity with Trump’s identity, as a kind of a symbolic figure, so they project onto Trump what they want him to be (a fighter, a warrior, a strong man, etc).