I think that there is a much simpler reason why intelligent people who support Trump on the issues often rush to defend his character flaws.
It is “my side bias.” My side bias is a powerful psychological bias towards supporting your side that intelligence does not seem to counter. While most cognitive biases detected by psychological research are lower among intelligent people, the my side bias is consistent across all levels of intelligence.
Most political commentators lean into this bias hard to keep their audience and maintain a steady stream of revenue from a reliable group of followers.
This cognitive bias is a fundamental driver of our partisan divide, and it can make smart people look stupid.
Worth emphasizing that political commentators are not just leaning into this bias for fame and money, but because of what you said in the previous sentence: “my side bias” is at least as strong among people of higher intelligence. I have also heard it suggested that smart people do a worse job of correcting for their own biases, because they consider themselves informed enough not to worry about them very much.
Not only are political commentators substantially smarter than the typical person, they go into the profession in the first place because they have strong my side bias. They are blind to their side’s flaws long before they start making any money from it.
I think a lot of it is a linger reaction to trumps first term. The main stream media did really just medaciously lie about him incessantly, not even including the russiagate debacle which has a 4 part 20000 word review from the Columbia school of journalism post mortem becuase the media systemically got it wrong.
Over time I think this basically trained a lot of the smarter trump supporters treat the media as liars by default. Combined with the social ostracism they probably face for pointing clear and present lies by the media.
I agree he's much harder to defend this time around. Even pre election i rationalized as a vote for judges/preservethe sc, 2a, not wanting what dems put on offer, and to punish the dems for their behavior in 2024 related to keep Biden in the race. The dems did deserve to lose that election.
And I am more or less getting what I voted, in a monkeys paw sort of way.
Many years ago, I realized that there's a substantial fraction of the US population that sees interpersonal violence as an acceptable way to settle disputes. I suspect it considerably overlaps with the "Jacksonian" cultural thread (per Fischer's "Albion's Seed") and the current MAGA movement.
Within that context, I note that Nate Silver said recently "What's maybe different about Trumpism, though, is that there's almost nothing high-minded about it, no attempt to appeal to people's better angels. In fact, that's part of what attracts people to it." And certainly, "politics as street brawl" is far easier to understand (by our ape brains) than all the intricacies of the formal government system and its adhering lobbying/commentary/activist wrappings. I mean, how many people can accurately describe how a bill gets through Congress?
Solana's a pretty good thinker, Richard. You may disagree with him this time, and you maybe right, but he's out there trying to engage reasonably. His shitposting - like yours - is for fun and engagement, and your "this is why I do it" bit towards the end comes off as special pleading. I could find several ridiculous posts of yours with little difficulty (the one where you used Taylor Lorenz as an example of rational thought by the left in contrast to the stupidity of the right comes most quickly to mind).
I agree Trump and his minions have been especially bad around the topic of censorship of late, and I would guess there's a certain amount of cope in anyone's explanation of "why it's ok this time," but it is also true that (1) Kimmel was almost certainly on his way out, (2) this silliness presented an opportunity for ABC, and (3) Kimmel's long descent into clapter-pandering and straight-up advocacy was wearing thin on all but an increasingly small number of people. This is also why your divorce example doesn't work. Actual vs proximate cause, Richard. Is that cope? Yeah. Is Trump a jackass? Hell, yeah. But Kimmel getting canned isn't a big deal, any more than Colbert getting canned was.
I think that there is a much simpler reason why intelligent people who support Trump on the issues often rush to defend his character flaws.
It is “my side bias.” My side bias is a powerful psychological bias towards supporting your side that intelligence does not seem to counter. While most cognitive biases detected by psychological research are lower among intelligent people, the my side bias is consistent across all levels of intelligence.
Most political commentators lean into this bias hard to keep their audience and maintain a steady stream of revenue from a reliable group of followers.
This cognitive bias is a fundamental driver of our partisan divide, and it can make smart people look stupid.
A book was written about it recently:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262045759/the-bias-that-divides-us/
Worth emphasizing that political commentators are not just leaning into this bias for fame and money, but because of what you said in the previous sentence: “my side bias” is at least as strong among people of higher intelligence. I have also heard it suggested that smart people do a worse job of correcting for their own biases, because they consider themselves informed enough not to worry about them very much.
Not only are political commentators substantially smarter than the typical person, they go into the profession in the first place because they have strong my side bias. They are blind to their side’s flaws long before they start making any money from it.
I think a lot of it is a linger reaction to trumps first term. The main stream media did really just medaciously lie about him incessantly, not even including the russiagate debacle which has a 4 part 20000 word review from the Columbia school of journalism post mortem becuase the media systemically got it wrong.
Over time I think this basically trained a lot of the smarter trump supporters treat the media as liars by default. Combined with the social ostracism they probably face for pointing clear and present lies by the media.
I agree he's much harder to defend this time around. Even pre election i rationalized as a vote for judges/preservethe sc, 2a, not wanting what dems put on offer, and to punish the dems for their behavior in 2024 related to keep Biden in the race. The dems did deserve to lose that election.
And I am more or less getting what I voted, in a monkeys paw sort of way.
I agree with quite a lot in this article, but for counterbalance I was looking for a left-wing framing on the same topic ... https://www.laprogressive.com/the-media-in-the-united-states/first-amendment-math
Many years ago, I realized that there's a substantial fraction of the US population that sees interpersonal violence as an acceptable way to settle disputes. I suspect it considerably overlaps with the "Jacksonian" cultural thread (per Fischer's "Albion's Seed") and the current MAGA movement.
Within that context, I note that Nate Silver said recently "What's maybe different about Trumpism, though, is that there's almost nothing high-minded about it, no attempt to appeal to people's better angels. In fact, that's part of what attracts people to it." And certainly, "politics as street brawl" is far easier to understand (by our ape brains) than all the intricacies of the formal government system and its adhering lobbying/commentary/activist wrappings. I mean, how many people can accurately describe how a bill gets through Congress?
Solana's a pretty good thinker, Richard. You may disagree with him this time, and you maybe right, but he's out there trying to engage reasonably. His shitposting - like yours - is for fun and engagement, and your "this is why I do it" bit towards the end comes off as special pleading. I could find several ridiculous posts of yours with little difficulty (the one where you used Taylor Lorenz as an example of rational thought by the left in contrast to the stupidity of the right comes most quickly to mind).
I agree Trump and his minions have been especially bad around the topic of censorship of late, and I would guess there's a certain amount of cope in anyone's explanation of "why it's ok this time," but it is also true that (1) Kimmel was almost certainly on his way out, (2) this silliness presented an opportunity for ABC, and (3) Kimmel's long descent into clapter-pandering and straight-up advocacy was wearing thin on all but an increasingly small number of people. This is also why your divorce example doesn't work. Actual vs proximate cause, Richard. Is that cope? Yeah. Is Trump a jackass? Hell, yeah. But Kimmel getting canned isn't a big deal, any more than Colbert getting canned was.
I’m not picking out one tweet, I see Solana’s stuff regularly, and I don’t agree he’s shown signs of being a good thinker.
FYI typo in the "Michael Shelle[n]berger problem" link
Thanks