It Has Come To This: How Do Intelligent Citizens Deal With The Irredeemably Stupid, Ignorant & Self-Pithed People Who Have Taken Over? The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers Is Now Reality

 

Trump Memes: The Best From "Pax On Both Houses"
paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/02/best-trump-meme-collection-3.html

"Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On Trump, Toxic Christianity And Cruelty As A Moral Obligation"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/02/compendium-of-best-pax-posts-on-trump_21.html

"The Hard, Central Truth Of Contemporary Conservatism"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/04/obamacare-and-hard-central-truth-of.html

My chosen topic deserves an entire book.
But for now I will say that a large part of "mi tercera edad" (my "senior citizen-hood") has been grappling with the realization that between a third and a half of Americans are stupid, ignorant and incapable of intellectually rigorous thought.

"A Confession: I'm Starting To Write Off Stupid People As Incorrigible" https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-confession-im-starting-to-write-off.html
"The Demonstrable Stupidity Of Trump-Cultists" https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-demonstrable-stupidity-of-trump.html
"Jaw-Dropping Stupidity: 3 Short Videos That Will Change Your View Of American Politics Forever" https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-jaw-dropping-stupidity-of-american.html
"The Daily Show" Lets Trump Cultists Reveal Their Own Stupidity And Obsequious Boot-Licking http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/02/trevor-noahs-daily-show-lets-trump.html
"When The Electorate Is This Stupid, Is Any Delusional Thinking Out Of Bounds?" http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/04/when-electorate-is-this-stupid-is-any.html
"Thinking Is A Learned Skill. Most Trumpistas Don't Understand This. In Fact, They Can't." https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/11/thinking-is-learned-skill-most.html
"Trump Is An Idiot's Idea Of A Genius": Find Out Why https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/03/trump-is-idiots-idea-of-genius-find-out.html
"Mark Twain, Adolf Hitler And The Dunning-Kruger Effect" http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/01/mark-twain-and-dunning-kruger-effect.html
Barack Obama: "It’s Like These Guys Take Pride In Being Ignorant." http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/06/barack-obama-its-like-these-guys-take.html

To be clear: "Unthinking populists" are not just willing, but eager, to be led by snake oil salesmen because these hucksters promise to do their thinking and decision-making for them.
These "populists" want to be lied to.
They want to be deceived.
As Bertrand Russell put it: "Most people would rather die than think. And many do."

"Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On Trump And His Cultists' Passion For Lying And Falsehood" https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/10/compendium-of-best-pax-posts-on-trump.html
Trump Tells The Truth: "I Lie." https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/07/lies-lies-lies-lies-trump-mendacity.html
Kimmel Illustrates All 3 Years of President Trump’s 16,241 Lies: "More Lies Than Visible Stars" https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/01/jimmy-kimmel-illustrates-three-years-of.html
Trump Lies More Convincingly Than "The Lord Of Lies" https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/03/trump-lies-more-convincingly-than-lord.html
"Truth Infuriates People Whose Lives Are Lies" http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/12/truth-infuriates-people-whose-lives-are.html
"American Conservatives Want To Be Lied To, But First Want To Redefine Falsehood As Truth" https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/08/george-f.html
"It's Not That The Assholes Are Uninterested In Truth. They Are Hostile To Truth." https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/06/its-not-that-assholes-are-uninterested.html

"The Hardest Truth: People Want To Be Lied To" https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-hardest-lesson-people-want-to-be.html

Just as Trump told his followers that they would all continue to vote for him "even if he shot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue," he revealed in his 1987 book, "Art Of The Deal" how "A little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion."
This exaggeration is nowhere greater than on Wall Street where it is estimated that at least 5% of the big wigs are sociopathic.
They are also rich.
And they are rich because the lion's share of their sociopathy manifests by knowing how easily their skill set is precisely that of a con man.
Like Bernie Madoff, they take you into their confidence and they have no trouble doing this because they want believe -- the NEED to believe -- in people like Madoff and Trump and P.T. Barnum.
And all the other "Wolves of Wall Street."

"Inside Job," Oscar Winning Documentary About 2007-2008 Financial Meltdown https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/01/inside-job-oscar-winning-documentary.html
"Is Wall Street Full Of Sociopaths?" http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/11/is-wall-street-full-of-psychopaths.html

Although this trend toward "normalized psychopathy" started with Reagan and was grossly exacerbated by Newt Gingrich, we now have an entire political party devoted not to whole-cloth, all-encompassing falsehood but - what's worse - a whole party demonically dedicated to normalizing the belief that falsehood-s-truth - and truth, falsehood.
From sea to shining sea - on an all-encompassing national scale - we are now living out Hitler's "Big Lie."
In Chapter 10 of Mein Kampf, der furher says: "By an able and persistent use of propaganda heaven itself can be presented to the people as if it were hell and, vice versa, the most miserable kind of life can be presented as if it were paradise."
American conservatives -- particularly white, "conservative" "Christians" -- are delighted that Trump is not only president of the United States, but performs the roll of Orwell's "Minister of Truth," discerning what is authentic from "fake news."
The sonofabitch actually said that "all negative polls are fake news!"
And his sludge-sucking cultists LOVE IT.
And they love it even though they realize that "some poll, somewhere" will actually diss "motherhood and apple pie." They know it is a brazen lie to say "all negative polls are fake news" and that this deranged statement is mendacious on the face of it.
Many of my readers will, on some level, recognize that I am telling the unadorned truth.
But it is even more convenient for these same readers to believe that nobody (except maybe Hitler, "way back in the misty past, in an entirely different time and place") could really be THAT evil... certainly not in today's world.
And definitely NOT in "America Made Great Again!"
Lamentably, hundreds of Republican Party leaders are THAT evil - Trump and McConnell leading the way.

"Revealing Online Exchange With A Self-Blinded Trump Cultist: The Obtusity Is Painful" https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/03/revealing-online-exchange-with-self.html
"Can Democracy Survive Uneducated Yahooism And The Clamor For Purchasable Stupefaction?" https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/03/can-democracy-survive-dumbed-down.html
Excerpt (from the article below): "Becoming habituated to GOP hypocrisy is a crucial part of how and why they continue to get away with it. Normalizing bad-faith politics, to put it another way, is a central goal of bad-faith politics."
Former Reagan Aide Bruce Bartlett Says Trump "Is Destroying The Government" https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/trump-is-destroying-the-government-former-reagan-aide-says-republicans-are-hypocrites-on-the-stimulus/