In my thinking “brain worms” is analogous with “mind virus”, which, as other wrote, can infect anyone, regardless or intelligence or whatever.

To me, brainworms describes someone that has been “infected” by a dysfunctional ideology (usually some form of liberalism or fascism). It colors everything they see, feel, say, and do. The brainworms analogy is especially apt because you can “inoculate” yourself with communist theory and praxis.

For example, an American that’s never read theory or had much exposure to any sort of communist thought or action, is instead steeped in the dominant neoliberal ideology. They might argue that the atomic bombings in Japan were justified because they prevented American deaths. This is because for their entire life they have been told things like that. Something so heinous as vaporizing hundreds of thousands of people doesn’t even phase them because they can’t consider other possibilities. That is the brainworm.

Very disrespectful of all the people who died of brain worms in that documentary Slither.

Brain worms isn’t a deficiency. If anything, it means you have more things in your skull than you should.