by ranger207 | 2025-07-22 18:32:58+00:00
I've had this mental model for a while now, but this post lays it out better than I could've. I think the most important part of the post is this part of the conclusion:

> For years, our main defense against misinformation and manipulation has been to double down on “truth”—to fact-check, debunk, and moderate. These efforts are important, but they rest on the assumption that truth is the main determinant of what people believe. The evidence, and the argument of this post, suggest otherwise: structure, coherence, and emotional resonance are far more important for the persistence and spread of beliefs.

I'm still friends with one or two people who are hat-wearing MAGA supporters. WE stopped talking politics after 2018 or so, but between 2016 and 2018, and still occasionally since, I get a glimpse into their belief graph. Sometimes their facts are incorrect, but that's less common than simply them interpreting the same facts in a different light. Occasionally they'll have an interpretation of a fact pattern that I find more compelling than the interpretation I find in more liberal spaces. (The Democrat party is, after all, not the best at hypocrisy.) These patterns are the place where the point of the blog post comes out most clearly: most people aren't motivated by facts and logic; they're motivated by a vast network of feelings and emotions where each point reinforces all the other points and an individual fact is less important for its truth than its reinforcement of the overall belief graph.

The most interesting thing about the MAGA belief graph though is its overall structure and maintenance. There is approximately a third of the US that simply has an entirely different basis of belief in the world than the other two thirds. How is it maintained? How does normal everyday contact between the two groups not reconcile the foundations of the two belief systems? It's not a difference in facts, although that does come up occasionally. For example, the sudden change in the truth of the Epstein client list and the effort of the MAGA belief system maintainers (news orgs, influencers, etc) to excise it from the belief graph has had some interesting effects.

But the interesting part is the methods used, the way the belief system reacts to influencers and others that shape the belief system, and how particular facts and opinions are used to reinforce the effects of both new and existing parts of the belief graph. Looking at my MAGA acquaintances and seeing their belief system from the outside has made those methods and reactions more legible, and has allowed me to notice some of the times those same methods and reactions pop up in other communities. For example, I dislike the focus on fact-checking, because too often the facts are the same on both sides, and it's only a difference in interpretation. Then people who agree with the fact checkers prove to themselves that the other side is unable to see truth, while people who disagree with the fact checkers prove to themselves that the other side twists truth into lies. Yet people still push for fact checking despite the fact it only reinforces both sides opinion of themselves rather than having any chance of changing the mind of anyone on the other side.

Unfortunately I am lazy or else I would've taken notes of examples of the methods and reactions used to reinforce a belief system, rather than just vague half-recollected memories that form my own belief graph. Regardless, I think it's important for people to look at their own belief system and, when presented with new facts or arguments, examining them and how they fit into their belief system, and see if maybe the argument is relying less on pure facts and more on emotional ties to the rest of their belief system.