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🧩 BND Motif Index · M106

Contempt for the base

A leader secretly looks down on the very people who support him.

🕵️ Theories🗂️ Leader-Follower Dynamics

⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.

A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.

🪜 Its family

what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it

🔗 goes with: 🧩 Elitist

🎙️ Who it came up with

the shows we follow where its claims came up (6 left-leaning, 3 center, 8 right-leaning so far), colored by the show's lean; the bar is how many of its claims each one heard

  1. ⚖️ Breaking Points 3 claims
  2. 🐘 Clay Travis & Buck Sexton 2 claims
  3. 🫏 The Kyle Kulinski Show 2 claims
  4. 🫏 The Young Turks (podcast) 2 claims
  5. 🫏 CNN 5 Things 1 claim
  6. 🫏 David Pakman Show (podcast) 1 claim
  7. 🐘 Fox News Rundown 1 claim
  8. 🐘 Ruthless 1 claim
  9. 🫏 The Adam Mockler Show 1 claim
  10. ⚖️ The Daily (NYT) 1 claim
  11. 🐘 The Dan Bongino Show 1 claim
  12. 🐘 The Dispatch Podcast 1 claim
➕ 6 more shows

🎙️ 6 more shows

  1. 🐘 The Megyn Kelly Show 1 claim
  2. 🫏 The MeidasTouch Podcast 1 claim
  3. 🔀 The Tim Dillon Show 1 claim
  4. 🐘 The Tucker Carlson Show 1 claim
  5. 🐘 Timcast IRL (podcast) 1 claim
  6. ⚖️ Top Story with Tom Llamas (NBC) 1 claim

"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.

📰 In the news

the stories its claims were told about, the most told first (matched by our tools, so a link can be wrong)

🗣️ In so many words

the words that carry it

💬 the tellers' own words: “Aren't they saying the GOP voters are too stupid to read” “banking on the idiocy of the Alaskan voters” “basically say his own voters are idiots” “calls Iowans 'troubled people.'” “counting on the MAGA to be so ignorant that they buy it” “Donald Trump thinks Alaskans are too backwater dumb (with a b)” “grab them by the single-digit IQ” “he admits his voters are stupid” “he could say any dumb crap he wants to and his supporters would still cheer him” “he could say the dumbest thing and they'd clap” “He doesn't care about his own voters who he is happy to steal from, his own voters who he is happy to scam with his meme coin.” “he has a real contempt for his own supporters”

🧶 Its claims

what's been told in this shape, in our words, by who told it: newest first in each; a claim's dots are the shows it came up on, in their lean's color (point at them for their names)

Told on the left 2

claims heard on left-leaning shows, and no right-leaning one

  • 2026-10-14 “Donald Trump does not care about Americans or his own voters.” 2
  • 2026-10-12 “Donald Trump expects his supporters to clap at whatever he says, even if it is stupid.” 5

Told on the right 1

claims heard on right-leaning shows, and no left-leaning one

  • 2026-10-31 “Mary Peltola's team holds Alaskans in disdain, testing on a focus group whether they could be confused by its decoy-candidate scheme.” 1

Told on both sides 2

claims heard on left- and right-leaning shows alike

  • 2026-10-29 “Mary Peltola's campaign staff mocked the intelligence of Alaskan voters by planning to trick them with a ballot spoiler.” 11
  • 2026-10-27 “Donald Trump has contempt for his supporters and finds satisfaction in their humiliation.” 4

Retold online 8

claims many people posted in their own words

  • 2026-10-28 “Donald Trump is a disgusting, demented sociopath who treats people like dogs.”
  • 2026-10-26 “Donald Trump is mocking Alaska voters by claiming they do not understand the word 'incumbent' when choosing between the two Sullivans.”
  • 2026-10-26 “Donald Trump is saying that his own voters are stupid.”
  • 2026-10-25 “Donald Trump and his administration believe Alaskan voters are too unintelligent to distinguish between the two Dan Sullivans on the ballot.”
  • 2026-10-25 “Elon Musk is intentionally spreading lies because he knows MAGA supporters are ignorant enough to believe them.”
  • 2026-10-25 “Stephen Miller is insulting the intelligence of Alaskan voters by claiming they cannot distinguish between candidates on the ballot.”
  • 2026-10-24 “Republicans' argument in court over a confusing ballot amounts to saying their own voters are too stupid to tell the candidates apart by party.”
  • 2026-10-11 “Donald Trump has expressed contempt for his supporters by stating that he could say stupid things and they would still clap for him.”

Fact-checked 1

claims a fact-checker examined: the verdict is theirs, behind the link

  • 2026-10-01 “Trump said Iowans are 'really troubled people'.” 🔎 Snopes

M106 · first seen 2026-10-05 · last 2026-10-31 · what this is · how the index works

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