From the Desk of the Night Watchman
- No Punching Down
- Feb 5
- 2 min read
MAGA is the Dumbest Cult of All Time — And Why a High School Diploma Matters
Every era produces its cults. Some wear robes. Some wait for comets. Some sell miracle juice. And then there’s the modern version: people who insist an election was stolen despite mountains of evidence, dozens of court losses, and repeated confirmations from the very officials who ran it.
That’s not skepticism. That’s faith without proof — the core ingredient of any cult.
Look at the pattern. A claim is made. Courts ask for evidence. None appears. Recounts happen. Same result. Audits happen. Same result. Republican and Democratic election officials agree on the outcome. Still, the belief survives. It doesn’t adapt to facts. It ignores them. That’s not how rational thought works — that’s how belief systems insulated from reality operate.
Cults don’t collapse when disproven. They double down. When predictions fail, followers say the timeline changed. When leaders are caught lying, followers say the system is corrupt. When facts contradict doctrine, facts become the enemy.
That’s where basic education comes in.
A high school diploma isn’t just a piece of paper. It represents exposure to fundamental mental tools: how to weigh evidence, how to distinguish opinion from fact, how to understand sources, how institutions work, and how to recognize logical fallacies. It’s training in how to think, not just what to think.
Civics class teaches that investigations happen for many reasons, not all of them dramatic. Science class teaches that claims require proof. History teaches that mass delusions are not new — and rarely end well. English class teaches how arguments are built and how weak ones fall apart.
Without those skills, people are vulnerable to emotional narratives dressed up as truth. Certainty feels good. Complexity doesn’t. Slogans are easier than systems. But reality is complicated, and responsible citizenship requires the patience to deal with that.
The irony is that the people most convinced they “see through the system” are often the most trapped by it — locked inside an information loop that filters out anything inconvenient.
Education doesn’t make someone immune to bad ideas. But it builds defenses. It slows the jump from suspicion to certainty. It teaches the difference between “this feels true” and “this is supported by evidence.”
And in an age where misinformation spreads faster than facts, that difference might be the most important lesson of all.
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