Why the Right Is Easy to Fool

Why the Right Cannot Tell the Difference Between Facts and LiesThere is a reason conservatives believe in things that are not true. It is not just stubbornness. It is not just Fox News. There is a psychological structure underneath it that explains everything. And once you see it you cannot unsee it.In 2024, three researchers at the University of Limerick published a study in the British Journal of Social Psychology. Adrian Lüders, Dino Carpentras, and Michael Quayle mapped out the actual beliefs of Republicans and Democrats across 40 political topics using a technique called Response Item Network analysis. Their goal was simple. They wanted to see if there was a real measurable difference in how each side thinks.What they found was striking.Republicans showed significantly more variety in their political opinions than Democrats. On the surface that sounds like a good thing. More variety. More independent thinking. More diversity of thought. Conservatives have been making exactly that argument for years.But the researchers called this attitude network density. And when you look at what was actually inside that Republican belief network the picture changes completely.That variety was not made up of well reasoned independent ideas built on evidence. It was made up of things with zero scientific basis. Climate denial. Flat Earth theory. Vaccine conspiracies. Stolen election lies. Bigfoot. The Loch Ness monster. When you have no standard for what counts as a valid belief, when proof is not required to let an idea into your head, of course you end up with more variety. Anyone can collect an unlimited number of things if they never throw anything out.Democrats showed fewer, tighter opinions. And the reason is not groupthink. The reason is that facts converge. When you follow real science and real peer reviewed evidence you stop believing in things that cannot be proven. The scientific method does not give you a hundred different answers. It gives you one. And you can test it, replicate it, and verify it over and over again until there is no reasonable doubt left.This is the core difference between the two belief systems. One has standards for what gets in. The other does not.Can this studies headline be any more misleading??And this difference does not just affect how people think. It affects whether people live or die.In 2022, researchers Jacob Wallace, Jason Schwartz, and Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham at Yale University tracked excess death rates for Republican and Democratic voters in Ohio and Florida throughout the COVID pandemic. What they found was devastating. After vaccines became widely available in 2021, the excess death rate among Republican voters was 43% higher than the excess death rate among Democratic voters. Before vaccines were available the gap was almost nonexistent. The moment a life saving tool based on real science became available, the belief system gap turned into a body count gap.Conservatives did not get vaccinated because their belief system told them not to trust the science. And they died for it at a 43% higher rate than Democrats. This is what happens when a belief system has no standards for what is allowed in. It does not just make you look stupid. It kills you.This is exactly why logic does not work on conservatives. When you try to debate someone whose belief system has no requirements for evidence you are not having an argument about ideas. You are debating a person who decided that proof does not matter. You show them data. They call it fake. You show them peer reviewed science. They call it a conspiracy. You show them video. They say it was staged.Nothing gets through because nothing is required to get in.The most stunning example of this happened in real time. When Artemis II launched, a significant portion of the right denied it was real while it was happening live on television. Not after. Not later when they had time to construct a theory. In real time. While the world watched. They were rejecting empirical reality as it unfolded in front of their eyes.That is not skepticism. That is a broken relationship with truth.Every climate denier. Every stolen election lie. Every vaccine conspiracy. Every Flat Earther. They all share the same root cause. A belief system with no filter. No standards. No requirement for evidence. A system that lets absolutely anything in as long as it feels right or confirms what they already want to believe.Here is the part they will hate.Republicans do have more diversity of thought. In the same way that a dumpster has more diversity of content than a refrigerator. One of them has standards for what gets in. The other one just collects garbage.So yes. Republicans do have more diversity of thought. In the same way that a dumpster has more diversity of content than a refrigerator.One of them has standards for what gets in.The other one just collects garbage.SourcesLüders, A., Carpentras, D., and Quayle, M. (2024). Attitude networks as intergroup realities: Using network modelling to research attitude identity relationships in polarized political contexts. British Journal of Social Psychology, 63(1), 37-51. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12665Wallace, J., Schwartz, J.L., and Goldsmith-Pinkham, P. (2022). Excess death rates for Republican and Democratic registered voters in Florida and Ohio during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Internal Medicine. https://tobin.yale.edu/research/excess-death-rates-republicans-and-democrats-during-covid-19-pandemic This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lucasbean.substack.com/subscribe