Filed under: Culture, Politics, and the Leftist Intellectual Superiority Complex
Once upon a time, we had debates. You know—where people with different life experiences sat down, shared their views, maybe had a heated back-and-forth, and then went out for a beer afterward. That time is gone. Now, if you don’t parrot the exact phrasing of whatever the Left’s groupthink is this week, you’re not just “wrong.” You’re stupid. Uneducated. A knuckle-dragging moron with a GED, a MAGA hat, and a pack of Slim Jims in your truck.
I hold the equivalent of a BS in supply chain management. That means I spend a lot of time in the real world—working with logistics, numbers, risk mitigation, and actual consequences. I don’t have the luxury of theory when a delayed shipment affects actual people. So when someone on Twitter with a liberal arts degree and no job experience calls me “uninformed,” I have to laugh. I can balance cost, time, and efficiency better than most of these folks can balance a checkbook—assuming they still use one.
The Intelligence Trap
Here’s the new definition of “intelligence,” according to the online left: if you agree with them, you’re smart. If you don’t? You’re a brainwashed cult member who doesn’t understand “nuance” or “systems of oppression.” Funny, because when you ask them to define those systems, they suddenly develop a rare form of vocabulary amnesia.
“The Left believes that disagreement equals hate, and that hate is violence, so disagreement is violence. That’s a deeply dangerous ideology.”— Ben Shapiro, UC Campus Lecture
Let’s be honest: this isn’t about intelligence. It’s about moral superiority and social currency. It’s easy to insult someone’s brain when your argument has more holes than a block of Swiss cheese in a shooting range. Calling you dumb is just lazy shorthand for “I don’t know how to defend my point.”
Projection Isn’t Just for Movie Theaters
Attacking intelligence is deflection, plain and simple. It’s a lot easier to scoff at a conservative for asking real-world questions—like, say, how we’re paying for all this free stuff—than to actually answer them. “Why don’t you care about people?” is not an answer to “How will this affect inflation?”
“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication, and a government bureaucracy to administer it.”— Thomas Sowell, Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene
And here’s a little secret: half the people who default to calling you a “low information voter” haven’t read a book in years unless it was required by a podcast or featured in an Instagram story. But they sure can cut and paste quotes from Vox and MSNBC with all the confidence of a freshman poli-sci major who just discovered Noam Chomsky.
Plain Talk vs. Academic Gibberish
Another reason the Left loves to dismiss dissenting views as “dumb”? Because conservatives, especially blue-collar and middle-class folks, tend to speak plainly. We don’t lace our sentences with five-dollar academic words or couch every statement in theoretical what-ifs. We just say what we mean.
“Credentialed ignorance is still ignorance.”— Victor Davis Hanson, National Review
But because it doesn’t sound like a college thesis on post-colonial gender frameworks, they assume it’s less intelligent. Sorry if I don’t reference Jacques Derrida when I say the border’s a mess, but I’m busy living in a country that feels less secure than it did ten years ago.
Newsflash: Experience Counts
Here’s what makes me chuckle every time I hear some progressive activist question a conservative’s intelligence: the assumption that real-world experience doesn’t count. Working in logistics, managing a supply chain, raising a family, serving in the military, paying bills, building a business—none of that qualifies as “intellectual” in their eyes.
“A serious problem in America is the gap between the people who work with their hands and those who think they know better.”— Camille Paglia, Free Women, Free Men
But guess what? It’s exactly the kind of intelligence that keeps the country running. The people mocked as “uninformed” are usually the ones who understand cause and effect better than the ones organizing protests about things they’ve never personally experienced.
So What’s the Play?
If you’re conservative, especially if you align with the MAGA crowd, this is your reality: you will be insulted not because you’re wrong, but because they can’t afford to admit you might be right. If they acknowledge your point has merit, their whole fragile worldview begins to unravel—and that’s terrifying to someone whose self-worth is wrapped in “being on the right side of history.”
“Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power.”— Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life
They don’t want discussion. They want compliance. And when you don’t comply, they get mean. Sarcasm, name-calling, and academic snobbery aren’t arguments—they’re defense mechanisms.
What To Do About It
- Don’t flinch. Intelligence insults are just white noise. They’re not attacking your brain—they’re defending their own ego.
- Speak plainly and confidently. Let them spiral into academic nonsense. The rest of us live in the real world.
- Push back with humor. Nothing deflates arrogance faster than a dry, well-timed Gen X zinger.
- Keep receipts. Point out their hypocrisy. Use facts. Then walk away when they get emotional.
“We are living in a time when having the wrong opinion can get you fired, shamed, and deplatformed—even if your facts are correct.”— Eric Weinstein, The Portal Podcast
At the end of the day, people who need to constantly prove they’re smart probably aren’t as confident in their own ideas as they pretend to be. And if calling you dumb is the best they’ve got, you’ve already won the argument.
Signal over noise. Every time.
Here’s your daily dose of #CommonSenseWins and #GenXRealTalk.
Past The Static 