Trump Is A Symptom of America's Embrace of Ignorance

Once upon a time, America - and even the Republican Party - embraced knowledge and science and academics and the highly educated were respected.  But then something happened.  The Republican Party was largely hijacked by right wing Christians, those I call Christofascists, who hold science, knowledge and anything that questions their myth and legend based belief in open contempt.  That corruption of the GOP has been compounded by Donald Trump who has embraced and would normalize white supremacists.  A piece in Psychology Today looks at this frightening trend which threatens not only America's position as a leader in the world, but also the constitutional framework laid down by the Founding Fathers.  Here are some highlights: 

The United States is tumbling fast toward a dangerous place. In just the last twenty years or so it has become increasingly acceptable for national political candidates to be openly and obviously dumb about things that matter. More than okay, dumb is now a selling point, an admirable quality that separates uninformed politicians from despised scientists, historians, and other educated experts. Empty-headed politicians and their handlers were once tasked with figuring out how to fool voters into believing that the candidate was smart and competent. Today it no longer seems necessary to hide or pretend. Vote for me because I’m as dumb as you are!

The United States may be on the verge of electing Donald Trump, a presidential candidate who has relied on conspiracy theories, fear, anger, and volume to win over the mob. But Trump’s success to date is a mere symptom of something far worse. He is but the latest candidate in a surge of loud and proud stupidity that threatens to reshape American culture long-term if it hasn’t already. Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Ben Carson, and other such candidates achieved national political prominence in recent years to show that anti-intellectual reality distortion can gain traction now better than ever before. Trump’s lack of knowledge about government, history, science, current events, national security, foreign and domestic policy, and the military may be alarming but it does not make him unique.

[T]his problem is larger than Republican vs. Democrat and contrasting political ideas. Intelligence and knowledge should be valued by all in a way that political labels can’t overcome. Voters ought to make the minimal effort necessary to recognize the wisdom in wisdom.

To be clear, for those who find it difficult to see over the walls of tribal politics, I stress that the problem addressed here stands apart from political philosophies. This has nothing to do with small vs. big government, gay marriage, tax rates, gun control, abortion, or any of the other usual points of contention. This is about millions of Americans failing to value intelligence, critical thinking, and a rational worldview when choosing candidates to support.

Trump’s critics have accused him of being racist, sexist, corrupt, a corrupt capitalist, war monger, fascist, and ego maniac. But such charges are not nearly as worrisome as Trump’s demonstrated lack of awareness and understanding of important topics. For example, a debate moderator asked him a question about America’s nuclear triad (the system of planes, land-based missiles, and subs that can deliver nuclear weapons) and it was clear that Trump didn’t know what nuclear triad meant.  . . . . Many people have expressed their concern about Trump having his finger on the nuclear button because they feel he is too sensitive and temperamental. The greater concern, however, ought to be that Trump doesn’t seem to know much about what “the button” does when pushed.

America can survive a racist or sexist president. There have been more than a few of those in the past. America can suffer through incompetent and corrupt presidents. We have had those, too. But I’m not sure it can endure many leaders who embrace, flaunt, and champion stupidity. The new dunce worship threatens everything good about America.

We all labor within a steep-walled canyon of ignorance. What has changed is that fewer Americans seem to agree that scaling those walls toward knowledge is a good and worthwhile thing to do. Many now seem content to lie down and wallow in the ignorance. And this is the greater problem. Consider what a Trump presidency might mean given his vigorous embrace of stupidity. Ben Carson—a man Trump has mentioned as a possible cabinet member—thinks the Earth is less than 10,000 years old and humans once coexisted with the stegosaurus and triceratops. Yes, a man who would be incompetent as an elementary school teacher might be the nation’s Education Secretary. 

[W]e can’t just laugh along and enjoy the circus because national leaders make decisions that can get people killed. President George W. Bush, a Yale and Harvard graduate, was not the complete imbecile his critics charged. But even his most loyal supporters never described him as a policy wonk or deep-thinking intellectual with a keen eye for world affairs. And, sure enough, this mattered. It was revealed after the invasion of Iraq, for example, that Bush knew nothing about the centuries-old tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Bush had never heard of, much less studied and considered, this obvious and foreseeable powder keg that turned out to be the very thing that sent the Iraq War spiraling down into a still-unsettled catastrophe that has cost many thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.

We must abandon the peculiar desire to recognize a peer or even an inferior in a national leader. Let’s admire and elevate people who are brighter, more educated, and more capable than us. Leaders should be out in front leading because they are the best. We don’t need presidents who shuffle alongside of us or, worse, behind us. America is a huge country with a population of more than three hundred million people. It’s not as if the supply of bright people has been exhausted. . . . . This is an easy fix. . . . . All we need is a new awareness movement to sell the public on an old idea. Spread the word: Presidents should be smart and well informed.

Christianist Lunacy In Texas

Having lived in Texas myself some years back, I know that there are sane, decent people throughout the state. It's unfortunate that there are not more on the Texas State Board of Education which is now dominated by far right Christianists who have an agenda of re-writing history to fit their warped religious extremism. They also seem to seek to dumb down Texas students sufficiently enough so that they will not know better than to question the voodoo version of Christianity that these folks are peddling. One irony, of course, is that while they see themselves as super patriots/Christians, their efforts to conform history to their personal extremist views are reminiscent of Soviet Russia and the true history that was lost to everyday Russians until after the fall of the communist regime. In addition, their efforts to establish their version of religious belief as the defacto official religion flies in the face of the true desires of the Founding Fathers. Here are highlights on this travesty from the Dallas Morning News:
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AUSTIN — In a landmark vote that will shape the future education of millions of Texas schoolchildren, the State Board of Education on Friday approved new curriculum standards for U.S. history and other social studies courses that reflect a more conservative tone than in the past.
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Split along party lines, the board voted 9-5 to adopt the new standards, which will dictate what is taught in all Texas schools and provide the basis for future textbooks and student achievement tests over the next decade.
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Approval came after the GOP-dominated board approved a new curriculum standard that would encourage high school students to question the legal doctrine of church-state separation - a sore point for social conservative groups who disagree with court decisions that have affirmed the doctrine, including the ban on school-sponsored prayer.
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Before the final vote on the lengthy list of standards, the board’s five Democrats criticized the Republican majority - primarily social conservatives - for injecting their political and religious views into the standards and giving short shrift to important minority figures in history.
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Board member Mavis Knight, D-Dallas, called the proposal a “travesty.” “The board has made these standards political and had little academic discussion about what students need to learn,” she said. “I am ashamed of what we have done to the students and teachers of this state.”
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While most of the world is seeking to better educate students for the competitive global economy, U.S. Christianists are actively trying to dumb down American students so that they will buy the religious based insanity that now is part and parcel with the Republican Party. It is very distressing to anyone who knows and respects true history.

A Right Winger Bemoans the Dumbing Down of the GOP

John Derbyshire is a contributing editor of National Review and the majority of the time I disagree with everything he writes. He's generally reactionary, bigoted and not what one would call LGBT friendly. On rare occasions, however, he shocks and comes out with something most observant. In a column in The American Conservative he has a great column that looks at the dumbing down of the GOP and conservatism by those like Rush Limbaugh the of which he describes as "carny barkers." The article is worth a read and it describes one of the reasons I left the GOP - not to mention its inability to recognize the separation of church and state. Increasingly, one either must become a Democrat or get a lobotomy to remain a Republican. Here are some highlights:
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Now the loudest Republican voice belongs to Rush Limbaugh.” Upon discovering that Limbaugh had anointed himself the successor to William F. Buckley Jr., WFB’s son Christopher retorted, “Rush, I knew William F. Buckley, Jr. William F. Buckley, Jr. was a father of mine. Rush, you’re no William F. Buckley, Jr.” The more po-faced conservative intellectuals have long winced at Limbaugh’s quips, parodies, slogans, and impatience with the starched-collar respectability of the official Right.

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Now the airwaves are full of conservative chat. Talkers magazine’s list of the top ten radio talk shows by number of weekly listeners also features Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, and Mark Levin.

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Did the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Savages, and Ingrahams lead us to this sorry state of affairs? They surely did. At the very least, by yoking themselves to the clueless George W. Bush and his free-spending administration, they helped create the great debt bubble that has now burst so spectacularly. The big names, too, were all uncritical of the decade-long (at least) efforts to “build democracy” in no-account nations with politically primitive populations. Sean Hannity called the Iraq War a “massive success,” and in January 2008 deemed the U.S. economy “phenomenal.”

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Much as their blind loyalty discredited the Right, perhaps the worst effect of Limbaugh et al. has been their draining away of political energy from what might have been a much more worthwhile project: the fostering of a middlebrow conservatism. There is nothing wrong with lowbrow conservatism. It’s energizing and fun. What’s wrong is the impression fixed in the minds of too many Americans that conservatism is always lowbrow, an impression our enemies gleefully reinforce when the opportunity arises.

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Reason has been overwhelmed by propaganda, ideas by slogans.” Talk radio has contributed mightily to this development. It does so by routinely descending into the ad hominem—Feminazis instead of feminism—and catering to reflex rather than thought. Where once conservatism had been about individualism, talk radio now rallies the mob. . . . In place of the permanent things, we get Happy Meal conservatism: cheap, childish, familiar. Gone are the internal tensions, the thought-provoking paradoxes, the ideological uneasiness that marked the early Right.

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[I]n fact liberals are very successful at talk radio. They are just no good at the lowbrow sort. The “Rush Limbaugh Show” may be first in those current Talkers magazine rankings, but second and third are National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” with 13 million weekly listeners each. It is easy to mock the studied gentility, affectless voices, and reflexive liberalism of NPR, but these are very successful radio programs.

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I repeat: There is nothing wrong with lowbrow conservatism. Ideas must be marketed, and right-wing talk radio captures a big and useful market segment. However, if there is no thoughtful, rigorous presentation of conservative ideas, then conservatism by default becomes the raucous parochialism of Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity, and company. . . . Conservatives have never had, and never should have, a problem with elitism. Why have we allowed carny barkers to run away with the Right?