this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2026
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It's not about mental capacity, it's about whether the thinking process gets kicked on at all.
Again, this is reductive and not very explanatory. What determines if someone's thinking process "gets kicked on?" Is this a post-facto analysis, where you see someone vote R, and think that they must not have thought? As socialists, we must understand that people generally are not stupid, but instead self-interested. This returns us to class.
People generally are reactionaries without long term thinking, you have to teach that out of them. For your example, emotional intelligence and education are both strong predictors of voting D vs R. Long-term thinking is not our baseline, because that generally wasn't useful for millions of years of evolution.
People generally think, but are not rational actors unless educated, otherwise you wouldn't see trump be so popular among Mexican and black men, and advertising/propaganda wouldn't exist. Humans are not rational actors working from outside the realm of animals, we are one step removed from monkeys. We ARE capable of long-term critical thinking, but it takes more energy so by default we don't use it.
I think what you're trying to get at is false consciousness, the identification of people within one class with the interests of another. This explains both Democrat and Republican voting, as both are capitalist parties that do not represent the working classes. The crucial part I am getting at, however, is that propaganda works by appealing to felt interests, which are generally formed by people's own class interests. We must do away with the idea that everything would be solved if education systems taught critical thinking, because this ignores the class components of society.
I do agree that education is necessary. The working class needs its own political party that can educate, agitate, and organize the rest of this class. However, the idea that the working classes are stupid is one that directly runs counter to the task of building a mass movement.
There is no class interest that makes Republicans vote to ban Muslim immigrants, that's a reactionary position based on propaganda and fearmongering. Not everything would be solved with critical thinking because people would still vote for their own interests, but it would stop people voting directly against their own interests and also harming others because of their racism and homo/transphobia.
People in general are not well-informed rational actors. Intelligence does not equal critical thinking, which is why you'll see doctors saying climate change is fake. I am stupid and so is the working class and so is everyone else when they are first born. I was just taught many times over not to be a reactionary and take my time to learn something before having an opinion on it. It's not their fault they weren't taught (or had lead poisoning in the 60s) but they're still not using critical thinking.
Opposition to immigrants is based on the requirements of the capitalist class to maintain both a source of intra-class conflict (to divide the working class) as well as to create a desparate sub-category of the working class that fears systemic violence and expulsion, and is thus more easily exploitable by capitalists. Critical thinking isn't the barrier, republican voters buy into this as a party primarily backed by a combination of the petite bourgeoisie and the haut bourgeoisie.
You're placing too much of an emphasis on the ideas of society without looking at where these ideas come from. It isn't lead poisoning, it's from the way we produce and distribute. That doesn't mean ideas do not play a part, that would be reductive, but the primacy exists with the base of society, the economic foundation.
Even if the working class voted in their self-interest, they would not be able to establish socialism, which is necessary. It would lead to a third party victory, and a failure of the third party to change capitalism into socialism piece by piece.