The greatest threat seems to be fear, because it makes you stupid. People in great numbers behave like herds, afraid of dangers (real or imaginary) and desperate for anything that makes them feel safer. Herds are manipulated by fear, and never before has been such an effective medium to disseminate that fear to the masses.

The dangers of being afraid have been recognized and studied many times in our history, yet we keep falling for it.

I guess a good question to ask is, do we keep falling for it because we are stupid?

I think people sometimes feel defenseless, therefore become afraid, therefore become stupid.

The problem is that it is easy for one side, in partisan politics, to label the other side as stupid, regardless of whether or not they actually are stupid.

If you hold a minority opinion, you're likely to be called stupid. But consensus is not the same thing as being truth.

I think it would be considered stupid if you damage your own country based on ideology without evidence

People disagree about what is damaging to their country. Some people think it's a national emergency that there's no border wall. Otherwise think we live in a third world country because we don't have a single payer healthcare system.

That's why the "evidence" portion is the important qualifier. There is evidence that we pay an absurd amount for healthcare in the US, while there is no evidence that a border wall would do anything.

Others would argue that there's no evidence that the US federal government could improve healthcare outcomes, and that there is evidence that border walls work, say, in Israel.

I'm not interested in arguing any of this either way. Just that "no evidence" can mean "no evidence that I personally find convincing".

No, they wouldn’t — they would just yell the same words louder and keep moving the goalposts so their side could “win”. I could respond with all the differences between the US and Israel borders, or point out that the US government runs two very large single payer health plans already, but that’s not what happens. An actual discussion like that is exactly what democracy needs but seems impossible to have right now.

Disenfranchising or otherwise silencing/supressing 'stupid' people would be eroding democracy, in a way.

How about those who are have an IQ less than 100 or know nothing about current events.