Notice that I did write low-cognitive function, although, those with low cognitive-function are also usually also conservative. I have an example from [url=http:/electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/May19-1.html] Electoral Vote demonstrating this:

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J.E in Brooklyn, NY, writes: Your piece "Who's Gonna Win This Thing?, Part III: A Poll Gone Mad" struck a personal chord. My father emigrated to the U.S. from Scotland when he was 12 years old, after his home was bombed in World War II. He earned an MA in mathematics from Fordham, went on to work for Union Carbide, IBM, Wall Street. He was a smart guy.

Had you asked him whether "Joe Biden or Donald Trump would do more in a second term to weaken democracy?", he would have answered your question before you'd have even finished it: "Biden."

My mother was a psychiatric nurse for 30 years. She went to her grave claiming Biden stole the election.

Both my parents were socially conservative. Despite intelligence and life experience, their vulnerability to right-wing propaganda left them unable to think critically about politics (and hard to talk with). "Nancy Pelosi oughta be shot" was a common refrain. Basically, all the tropes you hear on Fox and elsewhere. I have two sisters and a brother who are the same.

I have personally become obsessed by the interface of confirmation bias and modern media technology and am convinced that while we are all vulnerable to some extent, conservatives are disproportionately vulnerable to a degree by which entire economies have been constructed just to exploit this defect of the conservative psyche. Whether it's conservative talk radio, Fox, or social media, these people are, to be blunt, disproportionately easily manipulated as compared to the general public. I sometimes hear journalists and other commentators touch on this point, but never deeply. Whereas I feel like it's so obvious that it's practically a unified theory.

I try to be as objective as possible and avoid partisan logic. But when it comes to the ability of the media to manipulate segments of the population, there's simply no corollary to scale on the left or anywhere else. Modern algorithmic media technology has disproportionately overwhelmed conservatives' cognitive ability to think critically and detect when they're being manipulated (or even care for that matter).

In my opinion, this accounts for much of the polarization in this country. I'm thinking about climate change and social justice. My brother's thinking about trans athletes and green M&Ms and George Soros (and... and... and...).

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As an example, I give my brother:

This is what comes out of his mouth:

"¡Fascism Forever! ¡It is too bad that the attempted Coup d'État of 2021-01-06 failed! ¡GodEmperor Trump Forever!"

His cognitive inflexibility manifests itself in kneejerk resistance such as, but not limited to the following:

• Refusal to use a SplatterGuard in the MicroWaveOven.
• Refusal to put the nozzle of shower on a hose (this makes the it easier to clean oneself and the showerstall).
• Refusal to instal bidet.
• Refusal to use LEDs.
• Refusal to try to learn Spanish (Spanish is hard, and I cannot speak it well myself, but one should at least learn "Por favor, ¿donde está el bano?"
• Refusal to put a KeyLockBox on the door.*
• Refusal to use heated MattressPad (it takes much less energy to heat a bed than an whole house).
• Refusal to use passive heating and cooling (he could half his heating/cooling bill just by opening his house during day during winter for letting in heat and opening the house at night during summer for letting out heat).
• Et al.

* A KeyLockBox is a box with a CombinationLock one puts on a door with a key in it for the door for use when one accidently looks outside oneself. He refuses to use them because "¡That is not how it is done!" (¿do I detect cognitive inflexibility?). Like we all do, he occasionally locks himself outside. Everytime he breaks back into his home, he causes damage with a value greater than cost of a KeyLockBox. In other words, the keybox would pay for itself the 1st time he would use it. If he locks himself out annually, over the course of a lifetime, a keybox could pay for itself an 100 times over.

These are examples of > greater > than > 4-🌟s of KeyLockBoxes for someteen or upteen dollars (> more > than > a dozen (12) dollars, but < less < than < a score (20).

The fascists are lead around by the nose by their leaders playing them like fiddles. We have recursion:

Trump, a born conman, knows how to fleece the rubes. Putin, who is much more intelligent than Trump, plays Trump by pretending to his best friend. It is so obvious to cognitively flexable people, but it is impossible for use to get the conservatives to understand. I suppose that they just think to rigidly to get that their leaders bend them over, get them to grab their ankles, and spell the word "RUN":

R
U
N

⸘Are you in‽