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Notes -
Well, there are two different things going on there.
These:
are people who are just not smart enough / knowledgeable enough to understand that actual 10D chess moves are rare in politics. A look at history would tell you that, but most people do not read history. They do not understand that Occam's Razor, the idea that the simpler explanation is generally more likely to be correct, applies here. Some of them might also have various kinds of paranoia-inducing mental issues that cloud their understanding. Such people are everywhere on /pol/.
This:
is a person who might also belong to the first group above, but might not. It is possible for someone to be smart enough to understand what I described above and yet be fervently anti-NATO for one reason or another. Personally I care about liberalism, but obviously not everyone does. And even a liberal might hate NATO for nationalist reasons, or whatever.
The dissident right is made up of a small upper echelon of smart people and a huge mass of stupid people who are basically just cannon fodder that belongs to whoever can persuade them. That mass of stupid people are the Qanoners and so on. The left has its own variation of this, although it is not perfectly symmeterical.
Twenty years ago the top ivies had an incredible reputation in the general public. Ivy League professors were magical wizards who you could only listen to if you got accepted to special schools for the brilliant.
A lot of it the reputation still remains.
Picture a red state factory worker. He knows Harvard grads are super brilliant. DC is full of them. Yet he sees them making obviously stupid decisions.
Some grand 10D chess move is an obvious answer.
People who have more contact with Harvard grads, even just reading their writing regularly, are much more aware of their human limits.
Watching the academic elite discuss politics on Twitter has also opened a lot of eyes.
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I think that’s a bit uncharitable. I’ve always seen “it’s a show” statements as more of a mythical statement than any attempt at literal truth. What’s being gotten here is true — the elites are using other news as a “show” to distract from real, but embarrassing issues. A lot of conspiracy theories tend to work that way — they’re myths, but myths used to teach true things. They’re turning the frogs gay is kinda true. Pollution can change the sex of frogs. They’re shorthand narratives.
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