The smartest person on the right is whoever is the most obviously grifting and doesn't actually buy their own bullshit.
My money's on Roger stone, he's cosplaying as a steam punk villian but it's fairly clear all his beliefs are motivated by not wanting tonget thrown in prison for habitual election interfearance.
Hilariously that also puts Trump near the top of the list because he's open contempt for the actual Maga base is very thinly veiled.
Steve Bannon seems intelligent if we're giving credit to these sacks of shit. He's an asshole, a dumbass, but he knows how to think and strategize.
Peter Thiel (sp? But who cares) is another actually smart right winger. And no I don't mean "oh that's why he has billons of dollars!" I mean he knows where power resides, and he put himself into positions to have control over things that no fucking person should control. He's apparently dogshit at speaking, and I'm judging that on precisely the only one clip I've ever seen of him speak, but his actions speak loud enough. He's making all the right evil moves. Evil maxxing. Pretty sure he's behind a lot of the boosting of the faux-pro-labor movement you see with some, and growing, right wingers in the US. Might not have been his idea but he saw that it's a smart idea. His only downfall seems to be his inclination towards thinking weirdo liberals like JD Vance are popular or can be popular. He doesn't seem to understand that you can't fake the thing that people like Shawn Fain (sp?) have naturally where they can appeal to workers in an authentic way because they've lived the shit. Also makes people like him hard to fully corrupt so Thiel has to go back to his blood-boy collection and find JD at the bottom.
I think when it comes to right-wingers, the line between "true believer" and "grifter" is a lot more blurry than with left-wingers because they're not beholden to truth. Their only true belief is that some people are inherently better and more deserving than others, every other "belief" is flexible and interchangeable, but that doesn't necessarily mean that in the moment they're fully aware that their beliefs are bullshit. This might sound incoherent but from everything I've seen, I really don't think it's that simple.
I think the line is deffinitely blurry but there's some exceptions.
Like Trump groping a flag while saying "you dumb fucks love this shit huh" is pretty obvious and I think it's funny trumps the most obviously aware of the grift and he's their literal messiah.
Shapiro and some of his ilk over at turning points seem to actually believe they're intelligent but this seems like more of a reflex to maintain their own sense of superiority.
Maybe you should sort them into three categories. True believers, people who are willingly lying to themselves, and people who are willingly lying to everybody else.
Idk shapipoo actually seems like a true believer.
The smartest person on the right is whoever is the most obviously grifting and doesn't actually buy their own bullshit.
My money's on Roger stone, he's cosplaying as a steam punk villian but it's fairly clear all his beliefs are motivated by not wanting tonget thrown in prison for habitual election interfearance.
Hilariously that also puts Trump near the top of the list because he's open contempt for the actual Maga base is very thinly veiled.
Steve Bannon seems intelligent if we're giving credit to these sacks of shit. He's an asshole, a dumbass, but he knows how to think and strategize.
Peter Thiel (sp? But who cares) is another actually smart right winger. And no I don't mean "oh that's why he has billons of dollars!" I mean he knows where power resides, and he put himself into positions to have control over things that no fucking person should control. He's apparently dogshit at speaking, and I'm judging that on precisely the only one clip I've ever seen of him speak, but his actions speak loud enough. He's making all the right evil moves. Evil maxxing. Pretty sure he's behind a lot of the boosting of the faux-pro-labor movement you see with some, and growing, right wingers in the US. Might not have been his idea but he saw that it's a smart idea. His only downfall seems to be his inclination towards thinking weirdo liberals like JD Vance are popular or can be popular. He doesn't seem to understand that you can't fake the thing that people like Shawn Fain (sp?) have naturally where they can appeal to workers in an authentic way because they've lived the shit. Also makes people like him hard to fully corrupt so Thiel has to go back to his blood-boy collection and find JD at the bottom.
I think when it comes to right-wingers, the line between "true believer" and "grifter" is a lot more blurry than with left-wingers because they're not beholden to truth. Their only true belief is that some people are inherently better and more deserving than others, every other "belief" is flexible and interchangeable, but that doesn't necessarily mean that in the moment they're fully aware that their beliefs are bullshit. This might sound incoherent but from everything I've seen, I really don't think it's that simple.
I think the line is deffinitely blurry but there's some exceptions.
Like Trump groping a flag while saying "you dumb fucks love this shit huh" is pretty obvious and I think it's funny trumps the most obviously aware of the grift and he's their literal messiah.
Shapiro and some of his ilk over at turning points seem to actually believe they're intelligent but this seems like more of a reflex to maintain their own sense of superiority.
Maybe you should sort them into three categories. True believers, people who are willingly lying to themselves, and people who are willingly lying to everybody else.