CURTIS, Nebraska - The only health clinic here is shutting down, and the hospital CEO has blamed Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s signature legislation. But residents of Curtis - a one-stoplight town in deep-red farm country - aren’t buying that explanation.

“Anyone who’s saying that Medicaid cuts is why they’re closing is a liar,” April Roberts said, as she oversaw lunch at the Curtis Area Senior Center.

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[–] 129 points 1 year ago* (16 children)

But Kemp, a lifelong Republican and Trump supporter, doesn’t hold that against Trump and suggested he might change course. “I really think he’s gonna do something,” she said.

It's this kind of thinking I find staggering. Trump has done something - it's his bill that caused the problem he's not going to change course. I don't understand why Trump voters want to judge Trump on his words rather than his actions. They're amongst those who are going to suffer to preserve tax cuts that won't benefit them.

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  • [–] 66 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    It's not thinking at all, really. It's feeling. They don't know the difference. They feel like Trump should, or will, do something. So that makes it true for them.

    The "participation trophies are bad" crowd have embraced the idea that all opinions are equally valid rather than judged on merit. So they get to live in a world where they can shape reality on vibes. They have no use for critical thought.

    When they say "I think..." what we should hear is "I wish."

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    The "participation trophies are bad" crowd have embraced the idea that all opinions are equally valid rather than judged on merit.

    This is an interesting sentence. It is accurate, but seems contradictory. People who are bad at sportsball don't deserve recognition, but people who are bad at thinking should be treated with the same respect as scholars and people with real world experience.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago

    people who are bad at thinking should be treated with the same respect as scholars and people with real world experience.

    This reminds me of a quote from Isaac Asimov:

    Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'

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  • [+] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yes. They have complained for decades that trophies shouldn't go to losers, because it breeds weakness and complacency. But they only apply that to others. It's classic projection. It goes hand in hand with the devaluation of education and expertise.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I think if they had good judgement, they wouldn’t be trump voters.

    Additionally many of them have a “take it on faith” behavior, because that’s been drilled into them by their churches and communities for decades. Thinking critically would have been punished. It’s hard behavior to unlearn. People were denying covid with their death rattles from covid.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I think the point that keeps getting forgotten is that these people don't even hear about the bad things that Trump does most of the time and, when they do, it comes with spin to make it sound like a good thing. Mostly, they just hear about how much they are winning, how perfect the administration is... how great this administration has been for the economy, how much they have helped minorities but not in a way that will displace white people... how perfectly they are winning on the international stage, how perfectly the most recent special military action went, how much the rest of the world respects the US, how quickly other countries are giving in to our terriffs.

    They don't hear truth and, at this point, they are so brainwashed that they wouldn't know what to do with the truth if they encountered it.

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