Fast thinking includes a wide range of mental illusions, of biases and even prejudices that can be taught to the young, but are not inherent in humanity. it also includes a wide range of bogus moral panics that can be drummed up at any time. Let us examine the common ingrained prejudices of our times, and some of the latest panics, and what we are finally able to do about them now that they are firmly in the shrinking minority.
Firstly, as always, whatever their thoughtless screaming may be about, we can, to a first fast thinking approximation simply do more of it. But we can pause and think more slowly about how to counter the prejudices and panics that we see in the MSM and on antisocial media. In fact we have a number of notable slow thinkers in government and issue organizations and such. While we do that, however, we must recognize the slow thinkers who are paid to invent more of it.
Racism
This goes back to slavery, even before 1619, and to Southern Baptist Curse of Ham theology. It was hard work socializing Southern children to slavery and to lynchings, but extremely profitable.
Grokking Trumpists: Raising Racists
See Disney, The Song of the South, which they won’t re-release, but you can view on YouTube.
Racism is the most persistent delusion in US politics, but a third of the Gen Z children of the most vicious racists have learned slow thinking, and abandoned the hate. Meanwhile Bidenomics is making a full-frontal attack on systemic racism in law and custom.
Misogyny
Nativism
MAGA gets the economics of immigration all wrong
As part of MAGA’s efforts to destroy the so-called Deep State, the Heritage Foundation has published its Project 2025. In the realm of immigration, Project 2025 commits a second Trump administration to freeze work visas at statutorily set caps. The cap for foreign non-agricultural workers is currently set at 66,000, effectively guaranteeing that, given business demand for these workers, most it will be supplied via illegal immigration.
The War on Druggies
Drug War Confessional
“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?
We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
But they successfully activated the Base’s prejudiced fast thinking.
"Starve the beast" is a political strategy employed by American conservatives to limit government spending[1][2][3] by cutting taxes, to deprive the federal government of revenue in a deliberate effort to force it to reduce spending. The term "the beast", in this context, refers to the United States federal government and the programs it funds, using mainly American tax money, particularly social programs[4] such as education, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.[3]
On July 14, 1978, economist and future Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan testified to the Senate Finance Committee: "Let us remember that the basic purpose of any tax cut program in today's environment is to reduce the momentum of expenditure growth by restraining the amount of revenue available and trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending."[5]
Homophobia
CNN: After decades of silent protest, advocates and students speak out for LGBTQ rights
No, actually CNN, it has been going on since Stonewall and Advise and Consent.
MAGA Speaker Mike Johnson un-endorses a book he previously endorsed, laden with conspiracy theories and homophobic content
Anti-Semitism
WaPo (paywalled): Opinion Antisemitism has spiked. The cause is no mystery.
The MAGA Road to Anti-Semitism
On this episode of The Time Of Monsters, David Klion comments on the controversial posts from Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Kanye West.
Islamophobia
Market Fundamentalism
Milton Friedman, Apostle of Economic Creationism
Destroying Public Education
I am taking it for granted that the minimum requirements imposed on schools in order that vouchers be usable do not include whether the school is segregated or not.
Milton Friedman
Science Denial
See my Renewable Tuesday posts, and the war on women’s health.
Christian Nationalism
Project 2025