I'll admit that this theory is pretty out there, and I'm not going to continue to expound about it here. I'll also admit that I can easily get pretty worked up, and veer into the partisan, hair on fire rhetoric that is the very subject of my ire. I pledge to do better, and read your article.
I developed the roots of this idea over December '16, after several conversations with one of my life long friends I hadn't seen since a few months before the election. He's an attorney, and someone I know to be extremely bright. He voted Trump. The level of spite and shadenfreude in all of his arguments, and him repeating the phrase "I've never been so sure of anything in my life", in regards to his confidence in Trump to fulfill his campaign promises, was very jarring. All of these traits were completely foreign to my friend before Summer '16. He hadn't gotten less intelligent in any other avenue of his life.
I only came to this theory through the realization that susceptibility to public relations tactics, weaponized persuasion, whatever you want to call it, is not a matter of intelligence at all.
I developed the roots of this idea over December '16, after several conversations with one of my life long friends I hadn't seen since a few months before the election. He's an attorney, and someone I know to be extremely bright. He voted Trump. The level of spite and shadenfreude in all of his arguments, and him repeating the phrase "I've never been so sure of anything in my life", in regards to his confidence in Trump to fulfill his campaign promises, was very jarring. All of these traits were completely foreign to my friend before Summer '16. He hadn't gotten less intelligent in any other avenue of his life.
I only came to this theory through the realization that susceptibility to public relations tactics, weaponized persuasion, whatever you want to call it, is not a matter of intelligence at all.