Regular readers of my blog posts going back years know I speak often of "Teabrainery" or "Teabrainers." The reference should be obvious--namely, to the unsophisticated, often uneducated hick conservative-types that composed or mimic the post-2008 election "TEA Party" movement. Simply put, they are what happens when Jeff Foxworthy rednecks decide to get into "politicks. " (Misspellings are a distinctive hallmark of the movement--it's almost pathological with them.)
"One-dimensional, one-layer" is a way of describing their analysis. Their lack of base academic knowledge prevents them from having perspective--hence, "one-dimensional"--and their academic laziness prevents them from seriously digging into a matter--hence, "one-layer." (And when they do go deeper, they stay one-dimensional.) They don't really relish reading books without pictures or doing research, and never really have done so on anything that didn't involve their career, football, or NASCAR. (Or guns, their only redeeming academic point--see below.) Rather, they go by first impressions--"Weeeell, I jes' kinda theenk..."
Yet they INSIST on talking about whatever they are talking about from that academically worthless perspective. They don't understand political terminology, basically accusing decades-old dictionaries of modern biases. In one sense, "Teabrainery" can be described at its base level as, "Not knowing what one is talking about, and (thus) insisting on talking about it."
The biggest block to explaining this--or anything--to them is an explicit anti-academic stance. "Experts" are not simply examined for bias before accepting their analysis (a very warranted approach as demonstrated in the recent Corona situation). Rather, they are almost knee-jerk rejected in an all-or-nothing fashion. (See TDF 109 and TDF 128 for gun-related discussions of over-binary thinking). For example: I read of a libertarian-minded doctor in Italy who, in reaction to Corona mitigation--whether true overreach or more reasonable--questioned the Germ Theory of disease. If diseases are spread in that manner, then a legitimate pandemic can warrant mandatory preemptive mitigation actions against normally innocent behavior. Since libertarianism only allows actions against a person when a threat is imminent, this fact exposes libertarianism as dangerously flawed. So, this doctor, instead of adjusting her political ideology to meet fundamental reality, decided to deny with no scientific basis the whole theory. In her mind, it had to be wrong, because it contradicted her politics. Either that, or she simply was trying to deceive people to justify her politics. (Yes, much like a lot of liberal ideas over the past few centuries and before.)
Obviously, we can see this failure on both sides of the Political Science Left-Right spectrum. It's like Foxworthy's "redneckery": The traits can be found anywhere and in any demographic. Liberals can show the same traits as TEA Party-types. However, even as rednecks are largely White, American Southern, and conservative, so are Teabrainers largely, even characteristically, of the conservative/Right.
From 2018:
Below is a recent example pertaining to the current high ammo prices. Read, and see if you can identify the Teabrainery:
The initial commenter is being clever and succinct. He's facetiously saying that it's a great price--which it isn't--then throwing in the kicker by saying he means if it was during the post-Sandy Hook shooting price jump. Most thinking people get his point completely. A longer, and less sharp, version would be for him to say, "That WOULD BE a great price IF this was right after the Sandy Hook shooting."
But he forgot about the Teabrainers who occupy such forums, and went for the wit-soul of brevity--perhaps most notably by omitting the "if." The respondent takes the comment quite literally--Poe's Law put on steroids by unsophisticated Teabrainer thinking--and ignoring the Sandy Hook reference. The initial commenter even includes a DICTIONARY reference to explain his intent--but remember, Teabrainers hate "dickshunarees." (See TDF 91 for a discussion of a Hollywood depiction of severe Teabrained analysis.)
Now, of course it's possible this respondent is intentionally trolling or doing a bad job of covering his own initial Teabrainery in reading the initial comment. The commenter informs us that this dummy is like this a lot on that forum, so it is possible he's faking. Nonetheless, we have all seen people exactly this dumb, and on a regular basis. Shallow analysis without even a baseline understanding of the field.
Now, to be fair, we all "Teabrain" occasionally. We all miss the obvious occasionally. We all have gaps in knowledge we don't know we have, and yet speak occasionally. Occasionally.
Teabrainers, though, seem to make a lifestyle choice out of it. And unfortunately, the blue-checkmark-types on the conservative/Right feed it. Too many people who do know better put up with shallow, dumb radio and podcast hosts to build their careers in retail policy analysis. And the information they put out is often elementary and itself Teabrainish--one-layered, one-dimensional. Some of it, of course, may be legitimate Teabrainery--that is, these experts on our side are as Teabrained as their regular audiences.
This discussion of conservative/Right academic failing would not be complete without referencing Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA. Kirk has proposed that Bachelor degree courses of study cut out non-discipline-directed classes. That is, if you're studying a good conservative field like finance, there is no reason to take the requisite biology class. And seeing as how conservatives rarely get into Social Science fields outside of Law, that would mean the basic knowledge needed to credibly take part in public policy discussions would never even pass their eyes. Kirk's proposal would produce a generation of "educated" conservative Teabrainers. It would make a bad situation worse. (And all in the name of saving money--money which Leftist-Socialists will take as they accumulate social and political power with their Social Science educations.)
Teabrainery handicaps so much of the Patriot/traditionalist combatting of the Globalist/Left. TDF 79 demonstrates how it in fact endangers RKBA by preventing 2A advocates from actually understanding the reality and nuances of the Right that amendment was set to protect. Between the easily-contradicted factual presentations and a parallel failure to deal with political realities, Teabrainers in the form of libertarians (who are by no means always Teabrainers--not at all) and purists (who are almost by definition a bit Teabrainish) set the stage for a mass turning against RKBA by the general public. A little knowledge and real analysis, and this could be turned around.
So, the storal of the mory (some of you get that--hint: Archie Campbell) is this: Book learnin' ain't bad. Get facts before speaking. And think before explaining.
"Knowledge is power."
TDF INDEX: Cats, Guns, and National Security: THE DAILY FUDD index. https://catsgunsandnationalsecurity.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-daily-fudd-index.html
