Your point is clear: you're dealing with people who are being willfully moronic. In general, it's advisable to attribute stupidity and not malice -- in this case we are being inflicted with malicious stupidity.

I do believe these arguments being forwarded are deliberately obtuse: whenever an argument is proposed without anticipating and responding to the most obvious challenges, and the person appears to be otherwise possessed of significant intellect, I conclude that the banality is intentional.