[CamperBob2]

I disagree that education had any meaningful part to play. It's true that less-educated people were more inclined to vote for Trump, but it's also true that we got all the "education" about Trump between 2016 and 2020 that anyone should have needed.

You can fix ignorance with education, but you can't fix stupidity.

[johnnyanmac]

>we got all the "education" about Trump between 2016 and 2020 that anyone should have needed.

Well the "real" cause is economy. Trump had a strong economy in term 1 until COVID. If you weren't affected by the China trade war (and many in the red states arent), you could ignore the day to day politics and think "yeah Trump is great!"

But "economy" is too generic, and I feel that phenomenon is more attributed to "ignorance".And the comfortability to remain ignorant and fall for the spin telling you "things are good". That all feels to stem from education.

Is ignorance stupidity? Sometimes. They go hand in hand.

[CamperBob2]

If you weren't affected by the China trade war

Thinking that you won't be affected by a trade war with China, or that you will somehow come out ahead in the bargain, is as good a symptom of stupidity as any.

Either the tariffs were going to be an act of economic suicide, if implemented as originally promised by Trump, or they were going to be yet another shameless grift, designed to bring industry leaders to his door bowing and scraping and bearing gifts. Regardless, the people who voted for him won't get what they were promised, and the rest of us will be stuck with the long-term costs.