On Stupidity

I’ve long admired Bonhoeffer, and the punch of this short essay is one of the reasons why.

Trumpism as a 21st Century American phenomenon, however, is  only partially fueled by stupidity; strangely, there are some very intelligent Trump supporters.  And yes, as Bonhoeffer observes, reasoning with them is as futile as pushing a rope.

The former president has an amazing gift for filling people’s heads with utter crap.  He taps into the objects of his audience’s nightmares: what they hate, their fears, their passions, their misunderstanding about the world around them–and he uses that connection to implant ideas that have no basis in reality whatsoever, coupled with the absurd notion: “I alone can fix this.”

A great deal of his success is the stupidity of his followers, but it runs so much deeper than that.

A danger even more grave: this can happen again at any time.