Do you think Trump's base is stupid?

I wouldn't say stupid but willfully uninformed and adamant in their ignorance. They are suckers

Hahaha. I think so!

I wanted him to win, but i have some doubts on him. Really the only good thing Trump has done is making the overly politically correct people whine about it. Despite that i have little trust in his cabinet. But really thats why i wanted him to win, somehow i think Hillary would make a better president than him, i wouldn't mind her but thats really why i picked Trump

Edit: But then again i don't live in US, i just cheered on him throughout 2016

Politically... historically.... scientifically... yah, they all seem to be pretty stupid.

At least ive never had a chat with a Trump supporter where i left the conversation feeling that they understood anything at all.

I think what gets to count as "intelligence" is a much more interesting discussion. After the election, I had a couple conversations with some old high-school friends, both of whom are successful tradespeople. They were annoyed that in the TV coverage, they were constantly referred to as uneducated voters. I get where that comes from and am assuming the news channels were using levels of education as markers for categories, but those descriptors are a lot less definitive than we often think. Both of them could build vehicles and cars from scratch, but were talked about as being uneducated; It took me an entire day and six trips to hardware stores to replace one bathroom vanity, but I would have been talked about as being educated or highly educated.

Of course and the only way is your way correct?

Talk about being delusional but then again it is the trademark for the far-left.

Yes. Most definitely. They back up that assessment daily.......

Able to do a skill is not the same as educated.

@LJS9502_basic: Fair enough, but what does it mean to be educated then?

The ones that always stick to his side no matter what he does? Yes.

The blame for their ignorance is their echo chamber media on YouTube and alternative media elsewhere. I've listened to them enough to see their mental gymnastics and a lot of their clickbaity articles are pretty pointless, cheerleading-type news.

I try to stick to moderate conservatives for conservative news that aren't afraid of criticizing Turmp. Same goes for leftists who aren't totally partisan.

I would say partisanship is the real issue here. People supporting Hillary, people supporting Trump. Both nasty people, in my opinion.

And neither have direct correlations with intelligence.

What?

I blacked out for a bit.

I'm sure some of his base are intelligent people, but the majority of them seem to be quite, um, intellectually challenged.

Misinformed? Yes.

Stupid? Some.

If you're a fish and told your whole life you should climb trees, you're going to feel pretty stupid.

But on to the topic at hand: I think there are some stupid people in his base but there are stupid people in every base. However, I think most trump voters are more reactionary than contemplative, and I'll leave it at that.

Obviously, there are Trump supporters that are complete morons. But that doesn't mean all of them are. The ones that claim climate change is a hoax, or worse, a conspiracy to keep certain people behind the scenes rich, yes. The ones that say they voted for him because they felt Hillary Clinton didn't give a damn about them and was only concerned about how to please people in urban areas like LA? Not so much.

Not every Trump supporter is a moron, or someone that keeps screaming Benghazi or emails, or racist bigots. Fact of the matter is that calling all Trump supporters those things isn't going to bring them to the blue side.

Giving Trump supporters solid facts on how voting against him will benefit them (and not just you) are a better way to get them to your side than opinions on how voting for him makes them morons, or how they must be bigots. It wouldn't hurt to at least pretend that you care why they see him as a better choice, rather than being condescending and pretty much telling them that you know what is good for them and if they don't agree with you then they are morons. Especially if you are someone that lived in New York your whole life trying to tell someone that lives in Montana how Hillary Clinton would have been better for their individual situations.

All questions like this, and the replies some of you are posting does is push them away. I know that it is fun for some people to gather around and talk about how dumb all of those Trump supporters are when they are together, but that isn't the same as educating people into taking your stance and isn't going to convince them to change their votes.

Well he won the biggest low educated vote since the 80's.

Also the republican base has a higher rate of climate denial, evolution denial, and racism. Racism is linked with low IQ. Red states typically have lower education rates.

I think they're emotional voters, they "feel" politics more than they think about politics.

To call them stupid is incredibly ignorant, because I don't think most of them are. Almost as ignorant as being a Trump supporter.

With that said, I do think you will find a higher percentage of loud, uneducated, classless people in that category than you will in any other.

@Mercenary848:

What you described is basically the same as stupid.

Wait wait wait........ so are you saying the Illuminati nonsense or in general? Because anyone can demonstrate very easily that the rich and powerful in the US are functioning through our government to become even more rich and powerful and they are doing it at the cost of our infrastructure and social services.

You then go on to put Benghazi and the Emails in the same tier...... its just odd right? Thats twice you mentioned one fake thing with one real thing. And im not a Trump supporter but i do recognize the system of power we live in and i do recognize those Emails demonstrated a level of political and media corruption that had never actually been demonstrated before for any party.

Some of Trump's voters are just average conservatives. Some of them are racist troglodytes, some are just Republican core, unmovable voters. The ones that made him win, however, are people who got tired of both parties' bullshit; anti TPP voters, blue collar workers who lost their jobs and can't find a new one. People who, reasonably enough, considering who shamelessly pro-corporations Hillary Clinton is, voted for this kind of message:

Of course, it's not their fault that Trump immediately went all neo-con on them and threw that message out the window. And, quite obviously, that's one base that's eroding pretty damn quickly for him. However, I do not believe that the Democratic party is capable of capturing their interest. They'll just float around until the right politician(s) share the right message with them.

@kod: Climate change is one of those things that intelligent people know is real, but people may have a difference in opinion on how much effect humanity has on it versus other sources. The people that outright say it isn't real and actually believe that are not very intelligent.

As for a conspiracy to ignore it so billionaires that profit on ignoring it can keep getting richer, I won't deny the possibility. But people on the right that buy into that theory blame boogeymen like George Soros for it, which isn't the same as people on the left saying that oil companies are paying off Republicans to ignore it. Whether or not you want to say that people that buy into the Soros theory are not intelligent is up to you.

Benghazi and the emails are two real things that have happened. The difference between the left and the right is how much blame they put on Hillary Clinton over it. With Benghazi, people on the right at a minimum blame gross incompetence and at most blame a conspiracy for it, using both as reasons why Hillary Clinton shouldn't have been president. People on the left usually state that Benghazi was an unfortunate situation, but something that she couldn't have stopped. As a result, they called all of the investigations on Benghazi a political witch-hunt from the right (just like some call the Russia investigations a political witch-hunt from the left).

As for the emails, people on the right use it as an example of gross negligence on the proper way to secure classified information, which is why they wouldn't want to trust her with the nation's most sensitive secrets. On the other hand, people on the left (especially people that never dealt with classified information) saw it as not a big deal and something that should have never been something that should have stopped her from winning.

Labeling any large group of people, even Trump voters, as a single thing is a sure way to be wrong about something.

Yes and no, much like any other candidate ever.

I think some supporters are and some aren't. I wouldn't label a huge segment of the population as "stupid" as that would be stupid in and of itself.

Unequivocally so. Add a dash of naivety to the mix.

I dunno I get the vibe that a lot of people voted for Trump or Hilary because they were certain they did not want the other one to become president, not so much because they wanted either of them to become president.

Yes but he asked about his base which is not everyone that cast a vote for him..............

Some are stupid, some are just ignorant for whatever reasons, some are really intelligent and know exactly what they are doing. Pretty much the same as on the democrats side.

For example that guy Bannon, he might be an asshole but the guy is fucking smart. He almost singlehandedly put Trump in the White House by being a master manipulator. He took a small news outlet and transformed it into one of the main influencing forces during the campaign even taking the protagonism from other big established news outlets like Fox News.

It doesn't take a genius to prey on people's fears.........nor hate.

True that. You're right. I suppose he must have some kind of following that believes in him.

Educated is not the same as wisdom.

I wouldnt say someone has to be intelligent to understand climate change is a fact, simply understand where their expertise lies in. And if that is the case, or i guess with any understanding that its a fact case, one would not challenge Climatologists on their conclusions around this cycle being man made.

So, id say the George Soros thing is the possibility, yes? Its not demonstrated, none of the connections seem to be there . But we cant toss the idea out as false, simply not proven. This does not justify touting the idea btw.

But when it comes to oil companies and our single party of democrats and republicans, demonstrating that they receive millions from oil companies to act in oil companies favor is possibly one of the easiest things to actually demonstrate.

So why i labeled Benghazi in a different category than the EMails is because of the claims. With Benghazi, no one knew what claim they were making. People would say "Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi" and you'd say "Okay, im open to hearing what claim you're making, what is it?" And the answer would be "I don't know, but something was wrong and it was Hillary's fault" So this could be anything from her turning her phone off for a minute and not getting an important call, to her setting the whole thing up.

There was zero specific claims with Benghazi and as a result, nothing came of it. It was a right wing blame game talking point in an attempt to attack democrats. We've seen it plenty of times before and it looked like that was the case with the EMails. For the longest time no one really knew what the claims were with the emails and it just seemed like another Benghazi, until the FBI came out and said what they were investigating and then it all became too real. This was the point when anyone paying attention and concerned with reality, should have disconnected the two.

Do you have to be right or left to understand this was a gross negligence of classified information? Do you have to be right or left to understand she broke federal laws in order to do what she did? At this point, as a leftist, im not concerned with trusting her as president, im wondering what would happen to ME if i ignored the NSA's laws, then HACKED the NSA and redirected what would be classified and public information.... now..... im pretty sure id never see the light day again.... why is this not applied to her? This Email thing is not a partisan thing, its not equivalent to Benghazi.

If you want to talk about the people on the "left", you have those who excused her actions, and those who didnt. Like or dislike what she did... .agree with it or not, these actions "should" disqualify her from being president and qualify her for a life in a prison cell. Shit, if the number of hacks were correct (that would not have happened had it gone through the NSA servers) she did more damage than anyone in GITMO... so lets send her there. This was not Benghazi, we know for a fact she broke multiple federal laws because she didnt want her emails to be public record........ these are facts.

I think stupid might be too kind of a word to describe some of these people. They are ignorant and arrogant and would most likely literally cut off their nose to spite their face. I don't think that some of these people actually care whether they win or are right, they only care about making sure the other person loses or that they can try to prove them wrong. They really don't care if everyone loses in the process.

Wait, when did the thread shift from Trump's base to this board?

Both of these posts are spot on!

@Bullet_Sponge: Oh trust me, I really think that most of his supporters view Trump being President as them "winning".

@Archangel3371: we're in agreement there, but the nature of US politics seems to have changed to the point were the most important thing is for your side to win. Any questions of policy are second to winning.

I just can't agree with believing Trump supporters stupid. It's not the truth and as long as that narrative and misunderstanding continues, Trump will be president.

Completely understandable it is the impression on the surface considering Trump's actions and statements, but I know some extremely intelligent people who support him. My father, he's an optical physicist, a brilliant man who walks all over me in terms of intellect, loves Trump. He is so wound up in his hatred of the Left and the establishment that his support of him isn't so much based on Trump's merits as it is the spiting and destruction of what my father hates, and Trump is simply a vessel (the only vessel) for that outlet, so he jumps through mental gymnastics to justify whatever he does and dismisses anything he doesn't care for. It's impossible to hold a rationale discussion with him about Trump using evidence and logic, as logical and intelligent as he is. I've found this has no bearing on his support, it's like he's abandoned his critical facilities with this man.

Trying to view Trump supporters through any lens of rationality is a futile effort. Many of these people are operating on emotion, frustration, and desperation. There is a whole segment of the population that wouldn't abandon Trump no matter what he did. Literally nothing you could ever present to these people would change their mind. He is a cult to much of his base, which is frightening.

No, I can't agree intelligence is a factor in support of Trump. The underlying psychology is fascinating, but ultimately not nearly so simple as to dismiss it under one factor.

I feel like you just made an excellent case for at least one Trump supporter willfully making himself "stupid" on a specific topic with surgical precision. I feel like this is what people like the OP are referring to, and if not I'd argue they should be.

Yea, well. He's not stupid, he's misguided with obviously other factors at play than intelligence in making his choice. His intelligence is a victim, not a cause.

I'm agreeing with you. Perhaps poorly?

Ah, right. Sorry, long day. :)

By definition, yes, they are stupid.

@MirkoS77: No worries, mate!

I don't know dude....in this scenario he comes across as stupid. Many not in other elements of his life........but supporting an unqualified disaster who has accomplished nothing except lower the country in the eyes of the world is stupid. No other word for it.

stop being reasonable.

we want generalities and hyperbole so we can continue to yell at each other!

I don't think they're stupid. Irrational would be a better term,