A thought about how we raise our children: There’s a lot of emphasis put on “social skills,” and a temptation to read that as: Make your interactions with your peers rewarding, so that you brighten their day, and motivate them to come seek out your company more often later.

We think of this as the baseline requirement for growing up well-adjusted, socially engaged, not-an-asshole. An asshole is a child who’s given up on this as he matures. For some reason, he’s driven to make these interactions non-rewarding for people. We don’t put a lot of effort into figuring out why this wouldn’t be, but we know we don’t want our children to grow up into that.

And yet so many do!

From what I’ve seen of people, a whole lot of them give up on this “interaction is mutually rewarding” thing fairly early in the game, and we don’t call them “assholes”; we call them introverts. But I’m also seeing a lot of them, perhaps all of them, give up on this aspiration to make their social interactions mutually rewarding, for the simple reason they haven’t found them to be that way.

Interacting with others isn’t fun for them. It hasn’t been. How do they figure out how to make these interactions rewarding for others? Such a handicap would be entirely debilitating. You wouldn’t even be able to get started on such a task.

I notice something else about people: “Socially engaged” and “functioning properly,” no matter how much we may wish it to be so, is not equivalent to “make social interactions rewarding for everybody.” It’s far more accurate to peg it more like “Ostracize the right people” or “the usual suspects.” Figure out who’s being made a pariah, by everyone else, and then help do that. Show you’re proper clique material by loving the right people and then hating the right other people. Display the proper stencil pattern in your selection.

We teach this early. In all the schools. Informally. And, enthusiastically.

The hatred put on President Trump genuinely frightens me. There are those who would say I identify with it because I’m an “asshole” just like Trump. We have it in common that we’ve given up on making interactions mutually rewarding with other people — who, all too often, are simply not trying. Serves us right! We chose to be assholes! Well…I look at what happened during the State of the Union address, and I’m thinking…did we? Really? We have a lot of people among us who are genuinely convinced, down to the marrow of their bones, that they’re thinking for themselves. Articulate, engaged, highly educated people. And yet they hate everything Trump has done. Everything.

You show them something Trump did that is objectively good — undeniable. Lowering the crime rate, negotiating the release of hostages, etc. And they’ll find a way to deny.

There’s only one conclusion to draw, and it’s about us. It isn’t flattering. We do not call out undesirable policies, harmful policies, “asshole” behavior, rudeness crudeness etc. People don’t criticize that stuff. They criticize brands. There can be debates about “You painted a target on your own back” or “You did it to yourself,” but the fact is, that’s how it works. If you are of the brand which is to be criticized, you can’t do anything right. Everything you do is wrong.

If you’re Trump and you cure cancer, the concern is over the right people have to die of cancer, and you’re denying them that.

There’s only one explanation: Someone is distributing talking points in hard copy, like on actual cards. Like a poker dealer dealing out cards. A good democrat is supposed to take the card and then repeat what’s on it over and over.

Because it doesn’t make sense to say “It was staged!” and also “I’m sad that he missed.” One or the other of those. Not both.

I guess that quality of mutual exclusivity didn’t make it into the instructions, or too many people weren’t paying attention. Or the cards stuck together. But we have an awful lot of democrats who are following letter and not spirit. It’s too bad he missed — and — it was staged. We out here are supposed to take all that seriously? We can’t. The pieces don’t fit together.

You shouldn’t need me to point that out for you, democrats. Your brains have atrophied ahead of time in anticipation of this perfect new world you want to build.

We have got to get into the habit of discussing ideas. You know, that thing the Greeks were doing post-Socrates. A 2,500 year old idea idea about how to evaluate ideas. Why should we do X. Why should we not do Y. What’s true. What’s false. What do we know. What do we not know. What’s it all mean.

“I am forming an impression that you are a stupid person because of this idea you have” has become a sort of default template for all arguing and we really have to bring it to a stop like a.s.a.p. There are many reasons why I say this.

For one thing, like Justice Scalia used to say, we have some very good people pushing some awful ideas. You’ve taken a wrong fork in the road if you’re attacking the person. You’re making it look like people risk friendships when they discuss politics, and you’re also lending a certain credibility to that. You’re providing evidence that it’s true, and people have to refrain from discussing politics to remain friends. This naturally means people need to deceive each other to maintain their friendships. It’s awkward, unworkable and it’s fracturing a good nation.

What follows is, or is not, a separate item on this list. Maybe it’s not. You decide. Smart people push dumb ideas. They do it all the time. We have some friends we know because I used to work with the husband. They’re the couple who seem to understand the spirit of Red Meat Saturday better than most — they’re into it for the meat and wine, and the fellowship. They absolutely get it, and I respect the husband’s level of intellect enormously. I’m sure he’s smarter than I am. But they’re liberals because of the wife, it really shows, and some of the ideas he pushes are totally idiotic. I would never presume they’re representative of his level of intellectual acumen. That would be…well…stupid.

Now this is another item on the list: It’s not persuasive. Really, think back. How many minds have you changed by telling people their political opinions make them idiots? You’ve probably seen it work as often as I have. Big fat zero. I can guarantee it will never work on me because a lifetime of foul-ups has dissuaded me from trying to convince people I’m smart. “Morgan’s brilliant, he’ll have no problem figuring this out” has consistently preceded awful disasters and I don’t want to hear it anymore. It also ends with a dangling preposition and I don’t like that, but that’s neither here nor there.

What if you run into someone who you’re genuinely convinced is a dumb person? Here is an important point about dumb people that demands some focus, although I think most people have figured it out already. To a dumb person, a normal person doesn’t look smart. Dumb people see normal people as dumb people. To you, it seems I’m describing this person with a wrong opinion who you’ve decided is dumb. Well, he sees you that way, and that remains true even if he really is the stupid person and you’re the brilliant genius. No matter how you cut it, it’s a stale mate. And it’s entirely disconnected from the pressing question of which idea is the better one.

Another item: When you call people idiots for subscribing to a certain idea, or failing to accept your own idea with sufficient enthusiasm, it may not convince them but it will certainly make you feel better about your position even though you might not have reason to feel good about it. It tends to make you into an intractable asshole.

Finally, and maybe this is the same item as the previous paragraph, again you decide. It’s just plain immature. It’s what little kids say on the playground. Third grade playground. “You’re dumb!!” When you have an opinion that’s different from someone else’s, but you can’t say why you have it, or why the other person has theirs, and you’re totally unprepared to argue about it in every meaningful way…that’s your go-to. Your one port in the storm. “You’re dumb!”

Knock it off. Now. I mean it.

For I am a bear of very little brain. There are lots of people smarter than me. Some of them have opinions different from mine. But I’m right and they’re wrong…I think…not that I’m super-duper sure about it, but that’s the way things are going to stay until you can present me with an argument about why I have it backwards, and they’re the ones who are right, and I’m wrong until I change my mind. But you have to make it a good argument. Something coherent and logical, based on known truths. Something people use when they’re older than 8.