this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
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[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

It's fucked up that he says it like it's some sort of flex, and his cultists eat it up.

I know that there has been a demonization of higher learning for a very long time in Conservative america. But I'm floored by how pervasive it's become that a vast majority have been completely gaslit by it.

[–] ButtermilkBiscuit@feddit.nl 1 points 32 minutes ago

Whatever it takes to distract for the Epstein files I guess?

[–] yarr@feddit.nl 15 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

The stupider you are, the more attractive his platform becomes. Smart people tend not to vote against their interests, but stupid people do it, do it proudly, and keep doing it even after it bites them in the ass.

How many times have we seen where someone's spouse has been deported or their benefits have been cut and they STILL support Trump.

Trump's #1 skill is telling people in the room what they want to hear. He's just pretty bad about following up. His followers tend not to hold him to the fire. For example, if he promises thing X and doesn't do it, later he was "trolling" or "that was a joke to rile up the Democrats". Of course, when he does get a win they trumpet that from the rooftops.

He's probably the first one with the combination of charisma and lack of ethics that makes him exploit his base.

It continually amazes me that he's been so successful at capturing low-income voters. When you look at Trump he was born with a silver spoon. The man lives in a literal gilded house! Yet, he manages to stay "relatable" to his base. If you're really wildly rich, I can see why you'd want to vote for Trump because he's done a lot of great things for the extremely wealthy. However, for the 99% of us that are not wealthy, I think he's made times pretty hard.

I wish I could say people are learning as we go along, but it seems like the voters are getting spanked and coming back asking for more.

So, I agree. Smart people mostly don't like him.

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

Considering he is actively trying to reverse course on every bit of socioeconomic progress we have made, its more surprising that so many people agree with him than him actually saying it

[–] bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

The whole Trump Derangement Syndrome nonsense is so messed up.

It should be the opposite meaning. You have TDS if you cannot process the notion that Trump is bad or wrong

[–] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 1 points 35 minutes ago

Literal newspeak, straight from 1984.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 1 points 48 minutes ago

'Smart' as in 'smartass'. People laugh cause they think of themselves as intelligent.

Trump is just a figure head. To think that he needs to be intelligent is like thinking that he decided that the tariffs were needed.

He has to be liked by 50% of the population and hated by the other 50% so that they never talk to each other and come up with something better for them.

[–] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

So the 'Trump IQ Scale' than. We can determine someone's IQ by simply observing their approval of Trump. The more they agree the lower the IQ, the less they disagree the higher IQ. Trump himself is the reference point. Someone can maybe come up with a new way to represent it. Though we could just keep the 100 point scale, with Trump being the reference point. So we put T=0 and then you can be ± 99 from center. So someone could say "Yeah my TIQ is +73" or something. Seems like it would be more accurate than the made up IQ scale. Though some nuance to that... since a TIQ of +99 might as well be just as bad as a -99. I believe in his first term, he put for a bill around the cruelty of animals, so if you're a TIQ if +99 you're just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing and aren't taking into account what is being said/done. So the scale would be nuanced.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 1 points 11 minutes ago* (last edited 10 minutes ago)

The situation is so, so much worse than a relatively easy-to-define divide between "smart people and stupid people." If it was just a segment of the population who are stupid on some quantifiable level, we could work with that, we could work on outreach and education and compensation by making issues easier to understand and so on.

But it's not just stupidity, there is a larger, society-wide phenomenon that is plaguing the world right now, which is the systemic suppression of thought.

This is a very unpopular fact when I post it, but it remains true: the last three federal elections we held in the US had the highest voter turnout in American history. It wasn't a matter of people not caring or staying home, the issue shown in exit polling is that most voters had no idea what the candidates represented and felt basically like it was a coin-flip, and mostly went with their "gut" and said they had concerns about grocery prices that seemed to go up under Biden and Harris didn't make them feel confident enough that she would do things different from Biden, and that Trump seemed to at least promise things. Many Americans haven't paid solid attention to politics since.

So the picture is this: people who work 6 days a week, have no time or energy to read forums or browse for facts are just pulled along by facebook posts and ignore politics broadly to stay submerged in a lifestyle that simultaneously overworks us, and provides us with so many comforts that we're not incentivized to exercise thinking skills or be curious about anything broadly. Work, scroll, work, scroll... how many of you right now are on Lemmy on work-hours looking for things to keep your brain distracted? Imagine that but across hundreds of millions of people on their phones endlessly scrolling through youtube shorts, ads, clickbait headlines, bad science stories, drama and hype around insignificant bullshit and so on.

Even if you're not leaning one direction or another politically, you're going to scroll past a thousand memes of both political parties saying absurd things about each other that you don't feel connected with at all, because at the end of the day, no matter what they read about Epstein or Palestine or tariffs or "HE SAID WHAT" headlines, people are still just trying to not feel anything while they grind through the day so they can order a cab for their burrito later, and only really care about what that burrito is going to cost tomorrow... and I promise, Big Burrito has worked out exactly how high they can raise prices and how slowly they can do it before people start to feel uncomfortable.

It's not an accident you always have only just enough money to make your ends meet. This is all by design. They made a population of cattle and they milk us daily and keep us drugged and placated.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 1 points 47 minutes ago* (last edited 46 minutes ago)

Depends. If they are enriched by the regime, then its actually smart (albeit evil) to align with trump. The 99% of their supporters tho, absolute idiots.

[–] ABetterTomorrow@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 hours ago

Yeah, they have you figured out to be a fool. BTW he’s talking about 5+ year old people.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 42 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Yeah, because even a moderately intelligent person recognizes him for the criminal fraud that he is. We've been saying it from the beginning:

He's a stupid person's idea of a smart person.

[–] Dumhuvud@programming.dev 29 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Love to see him calling his supporters morons.

[–] Lucky_777@lemmy.world 7 points 2 hours ago

Yet they drop to their knees and say...."please sir, can I have some more?"

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 19 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (2 children)

Pol Pot would supposedly round up and execute people wearing glasses because they were seen as "intellectuals".

You are not as far from this as you want to be.

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

In the words of Clay Davis: "Shiiiiiiiit."

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Are you sure he wants to be far from that?

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 points 2 hours ago

I wasn't talking to him.

[–] LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

The dementia is taking hold.

[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 29 points 5 hours ago

For once, he is right. Anyone moderately intelligent wouldn't like such a weak con man. He only appeals to weak men.

[–] Wazowski@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

Even a broken cunt is right twice a day.

[–] Sunflier@lemmy.world 40 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Logical run through:

*His statement: If you're smart, you don't like me.

*Contrapositive: If you like me, you are not smart.

Got it.

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 14 points 4 hours ago

Thats the subtext. His followers won't get it unfortunately because...unfortunately they have the dumb, and its terminal.

[–] BotsRuinedEverything@lemmy.world 26 points 7 hours ago

He's SO close to getting it

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 3 points 4 hours ago

That certainly explains his antagonism towards science and education.

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

He for once set the bar too high. Its normal people dont like him. To him normal folk are smart.

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 hour ago

Yeah I'm a dumbass and I hate him too

[–] barnaclebutt@lemmy.world 34 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Almost there Donnie... What's the conclusion?

Also, you're a child rapist that is still using the government to cover it up.

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