Why the simplest lines hit the biggest nerve

President Donald Trump doesn’t tiptoe around the obvious. Even in his State of the Union address, he put dangerous, destructive realities in blunt terms.

So why doesn’t it land?

Many people cling to nonsense even when the nonsense has been exposed.

Why do ordinary people hear the twisted “logic” of the woke mindset and not respond with the only reasonable reaction: What?! That doesn’t even make sense!

Consider three simple propositions Trump has stated plainly.

“There are two sexes.”

“Men masquerading as women do not belong in women’s sports.”

“The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

Most Americans answer those without breaking a sweat: Yes. Of course. Move on.

Glenn Beck noted that the third line — “protect American citizens, not illegal aliens” — should land like Ronald Reagan’s “Tear down this wall!” A statement so clean should do serious damage to the Democrat brand — maybe even serve as the kill shot.

And yet we keep watching the same evasions, the same doublespeak, the same manufactured confusion. Even when someone drags the truth into the light, too many people stare at it and blink.

That’s the puzzle. Once a fact is stated plainly in a public forum, shouldn’t observers think: Of course, I see it! I knew it all along!

Learning is supposed to work that way. A rational mind stores what it sees and hears. When new evidence appears, it updates. When a similar situation comes along, it draws on what it already knows and responds accordingly.

So what explains the opposite? What explains a person seeing something that is as plain as day and still refusing to interpret it correctly?

Some cases are easy. Some people are self-deluded. Some are wicked. Some know they’re lying and do it anyway for profit, power, or self-aggrandizement. They surround themselves with gullible followers and use them.

Set those cases aside for a moment. Even then, you still face a stubborn reality: Many people cling to nonsense even when the nonsense has been exposed.

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Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

That’s where a grim insight from Dietrich Bonhoeffer may help. Bonhoeffer wrote from a prison cell in Nazi Germany and reflected on “stupidity.” His point wasn’t that stupid people score poorly on tests. His point was moral and social: A person can become hardened against reason itself. He wrote:

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force.

Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.

Against stupidity we are defenseless.

Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one's prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.

In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

For this reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one.

Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.

In modern vernacular, that insight has been whittled down to “you can’t fix stupid.”

So is that the answer? Does stupidity explain why so many people cannot process statements as basic as “there are two sexes” or “government must protect citizens first”?

Maybe.

Not as a way to sneer at strangers, but as a warning: Once a society trains itself to treat reality as negotiable, argument stops working. The debate stops being about evidence and becomes a test of loyalty, emotion, and power. At that point, the obvious doesn’t fail because it’s unclear. It fails because too many people have learned — willingly or not — to reject clarity.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at American Thinker.