Why do people resist the boring read? Melvin Lerner had a theory. He published a book in 1980 called The Belief in a Just World, and his argument was that most of us walk around with a bone-deep need to believe that people Get What They Deserve. If someone is rich, they must be smart. If they’re smart, their decisions must make sense. And if their decisions look dumb, well, you must be the one who’s missing something. It’s a warm blanket of a worldview. It just doesn’t survive contact with reality.

Conservatives do not believe in reality. That demand to “study it out” and invent a narrative is how they interact with the world. Obviously just for their side. Our side? No, we’re idiots, and put the wrong people in high positions, which is why their people in high positions keep fucking up.

They think this is all you’re doing. They think that’s all there is.

Reasoned argument is a learned behavior. Treating these people as reasonable has no predictive value. That is not the brain activity they are engaged in.

I’d say everyone does stupid things from time to time. Powerful people can only shield themselves from the consequences of their foolish actions for so long—until they do something so incredibly stupid that the disaster becomes spectacular and inevitable… and that’s how they go down in history.