The stupid epidemic has arrived.
Entire Christian denominations insist there is only one way to read the Bible, and they expel anyone daring to dissent. Politicians and the media reach for the accusation of “stupid” out of the intractable arguments. The echoes of “stupid” fill our social media, eating away at democratic principles of equality, freedom and mutual respect.
In political and religious arguments, the word “stupid” keeps popping up as the ultimate argument against dissent.
Rodney Kennedy
This happens in reference to MAGA supporters believing Donald Trump — a comfort piece of rhetorical junk food for Trump critics. A recent Salon article sums up the typical attitude: “‘Too Stupid to Know Better’: MAGA Eats Up Trump’s Idiot President Defense.” Jonathan Haidt penned an article for The Atlantic: “Why the Past Ten Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.”
Mark Leibovich says many of Trump’s most loyal apologists are “complete imbeciles.” He calls Trump-backed candidates a collection of “cranks, bozos and racists” in The Atlantic. Joe Scarborough responding to the Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene-led effort to expunge the past impeachments of former President Donald Trump almost shouted, “It’s just so stupid!” Writing for Jezebel, Laura Bassett slammed Sen. Josh Hawley’s Juneteenth remarks as “mind-blowingly stupid.”
Frustrated liberals have surrendered all attempts at rational argument and gone straight to “stupid” accusations.
But guess what? There’s no value in calling anyone “stupid.”
“Stupid” is a word that still jars me. My mother never allowed the word in our home. One “stupid” at the dining room table would cost you your evening meal. She thought “stupid” belonged with all the words of English profanity.
Where has this sudden explosion of “stupid” originated?
Perhaps Donald Trump started the fad of calling people “stupid.” The media has compiled long lists of the people Trump has called “stupid” or “losers” or “mentally ill.” He called Karl Rove stupid five times. Bloomberg’s Tim O’Brien earned the description three times, as did television host Glenn Beck. Trump has referred to Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., as “low IQ,” a pejorative generally reserved for her, seven times. He used the term to describe actor Robert De Niro after De Niro insulted him. He has described Don Lemon as unintelligent three times.
“Stupid” or any of its variations seems the argument du jour. Like a gunslinger pulling his pistols in a crowded bar over the slightest offense, many Christians reach for “stupid” when someone dares disagree with “what the Bible says” or “what they know is the literal truth of God.”
The distance between a respectful conversation and “stupid” shrinks daily. My own Facebook day would be incomplete without at least one, “What kind of preacher are you?” “Have you ever read Genesis 19?” Or “You are dumb as rocks.”
Attempts at reasoned argument and rational deliberation disintegrate within minutes in a single transaction with my evangelical friends. Why does this have to be our way of communicating frustration? I have spent a lifetime believing words matter, reasons matter, and rational discernment is determinative to how Americans make decisions.
But now, in this highly oxygenated environment, reason has left town replaced with hyperbole, untruthful, incoherent claims and constant repetition of divisive tactics, harsh words and violent allusions.
If liberals think the future lies in calling conservatives “stupid,” we miss the point that they are attracted to how Trump talks and acts.
Words like “stupid” and “idiot” shut down thought. The use of the word “stupid” in the so-called culture war really means: Don’t look for solutions. If the purpose of calling someone “stupid” is to save time by ending the debate, then it is a sure-fire time-saving device. If the opponent is stupid, then you do not need to investigate why they made such a statement, or look into their motivations, or try to understand them.
Like all “junk food,” the assumption of stupidity contains no substance. Rhetorical scholar Ryan Skinnell says, “The easiest source of comfort is to believe Trump’s supporters are either (a) stupid or (b) evil.” Both sides end up consuming rhetorical junk food that serves only as “comfort food.”
“To call someone ‘stupid’ is a human rights violation because you are refusing to recognize your opponent as a rational creature.”
The word “stupid” transfers the question from the ordinary realm of debate to a sinister, elitist metaphysical one. To call someone “stupid” is a human rights violation because you are refusing to recognize your opponent as a rational creature. And that denial of rational creaturehood is at the heart of all human rights violations. It accounts for how humans are so capable of demeaning, annihilating, enslaving and destroying one another.
“Stupid” or “idiot” conjures up the darkest of human DNA: dehumanization. David Livingston Smith, in Less than Human, explains: “Subhumans, it was believed, are beings that lack that special something that makes us human. Because of this deficit, they don’t command the respect that we, the truly human beings, are obliged to grant one another. They can be enslaved, tortured or even exterminated — treated in ways in which we could not bring ourselves to treat those whom we regard as members of our own kind. This phenomenon is called dehumanization.”
Calling another person “stupid” dehumanizes them, makes them less than human. This is how the enlightened minds of our founding fathers worked as they insisted on all men being created equal and proceeded to make African Americans count as less than human.
“Calling MAGA followers ‘stupid’ doesn’t convince anyone to desert Trump or face the truth.”
Calling MAGA followers “stupid” doesn’t convince anyone to desert Trump or face the truth. Trump’s supporters are not just suckers falling for a scam. They know he is a serial liar, yet they still trust him.
Chris Christie was booed at the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, D.C., after criticizing Trump. Christie reached for the “idiot” line in comments to reporters after the conference: “This guy offered me White House chief of staff and then was on a podcast yesterday saying he never trusted me. What does that make him — a liar or an idiot? It’s one or the other. Because if you offered me chief of staff and you never trusted me, then you’re an idiot. And if you did trust me enough to offer me chief of staff, then you’re a liar.”
Robert Jeffress may offer the best example of how Trump is perceived by his followers. Jeffress, who sat on Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board, said: “And look, I heard it over and over again. I spoke to thousands of these people last week and the reason they support this president is not because they’re religious hypocrites. It’s not because they think he is perfect. They know he’s not perfect just like none of us is perfect. But they appreciate the strong Christian stands he takes.”
Jeffress continued: “He is without doubt the most pro-life, pro-religious liberty, pro-Israel, pro-consumer president we have ever had, and they don’t want to see this warrior in a sense removed from his place of leadership in our country. There is a fear that if the left ever regains control of this country again, our nation is finished.”
Trump has constructed a drama where his followers are under attack from a secular, atheist, evil world, and he, and he alone, can save them. He has convinced evangelicals he can turn the world they fear into a stable world again.
“The reason that a staggering lie can pass is not only that it stabilizes an inherently unstable world by declaring it stable, but that it displays a world which we wished existed, a world in which evil was manageable, if not by us, at least by God,” according to Terrence Tilley.
MAGA supporters believe Trump with the same intensity that many evangelicals believe the earth is only a few thousand years old, that gays are an abomination to God and that women should not be pastors. Attempt to engage anyone who believes these ideas and you will be treated to an assault of gigantic proportions. The intensity, the emotional intensity, is not evidence of stupidity.
“Liberal attempts to ‘educate’ MAGA is wasted time.”
What this means is that liberal attempts to “educate” MAGA is wasted time. “Getting to know” Trump supporters is beside the point. And calling them “stupid” is a worthless rhetorical trick.
Progressives need a different line of attack. That begins with a different target audience. Chaim Perelman called it the universal audience. The person in your face will probably never change, but the ongoing debate among the universal audience — the collection of all rational human beings — will tilt in incremental ways in the direction of truth and justice. We are better served to stick with our values, our arguments. Change minds one at a time — incremental progress. God has given us all the time in the world to speak the good news. There’s no rush.
Articulate the biblical, philosophical, historical realities with as much passion as possible. Repeat the arguments often. Not a bad lifetime of work.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 10 books, including his latest, Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy.