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slightlv

(7,786 posts)
5. This sounds like a subject I was addressing in another message a few days ago...
Fri Mar 20, 2026, 09:30 PM
Mar 20

we know that oversized amygdala makes people give into the "flight or fight" response. That they are, nearly by definition, MAGAs. They hate and fear anything that isn't like them. They don't want to make decisions... they want to be told what to do by a great "Daddy"... whether that be a skydaddy or someone on earth like trump.

I've wondered if there is a genetic component to enlarging of amygdala... or if it's nurture and environment, alone. But one thing I never thought about was the kid as s/he was growing up. It's not just enough to be told over and over again "x" people are crap, or that certain beliefs are heretical. "My logic" would tell me there might be a genetic component from one or both parents being MAGA, as well as the environment. But my logic goes out the door in specific cases. For example, my grandfather would probably be a maga if he were alive today. My father ALWAYS voted repub, although he was more like the old, old version of republicanism than anything approaching today. If he were still alive, he'd be a dyed-in-the-wool RINO... he basically was, even back then. His whole life was built around the Great Depression. Fear was something that was with him every single day. He lost his twin brother in a house fire, and then was shuffled from one family member to another until he was old enough to join the Army for WWII. Food insecurity was something he lived with every day, and there wasn't a lot of love to go around for him.

My mother was a Democrat, as was my grandmother. My mom never voted for a repub her whole life. And yet she carried more discriminatory notions about her than I would have guessed, just from her voting record.

And here I am... I'm about as far to the left as you can get without being an anarchist. Both genetically and by nurture, one would think my amygdala would be enlarged and I would by experience and life be much more conservative than I am now. Especially since one tends to become conservative as one ages.

"Nature vs Nurture" has always intrigued me in so many situations. "Supid people" are just one more aspect of it, IMO. (LOL)

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