Trump's secret weapon is that he talks in the same way stupid people think. His thoughts don't follow any kind of coherent reasoning, are completely unmoored from facts, and is generally a Stream of consciousness recital of what he wants to be true.
In the defense of stupid people, society has spent a lot of effort over the past few decades in making an economy that rewards efficiency and intelligence. That works out for us, but if you are on the left side of the intelligence bell curve, your life is going to be a lot more stressful and a lot less pleasant than someone who is smarter.
The thing is, it's not just stupidity. It's closed-mindedness, it's lack of curiosity. People can't really do much about their own IQ, but not caring about how the world works is a choice.
You hit the nail on the head, my friend, when you talked about how the party's economic platforms haven't changed. I am so very tired of hearing how the Democrats have abandoned the working class. It's horseshit. The working class abandoned the Democrats.
The Republicans have spent decades prying them away from the one party that represents their economic interests by appealing to their cultural interests. And yet all we've heard after Trump's victories is how we elitists are blind to the struggles of the working class. This is only half true.
The truth is that liberal/leftist elitists still vote for economic policies that distribute wealth downward. It's the conservative/right-wing elitists who support trickle-down economics, and are all in on the project of fleecing the rubes and taking advantage of their lack of education and poorly-informed worldview.
The Democrats have nothing to apologize for, except for the fact that they don't talk to people like a photographer waving a stuffed toy in front of a child to get him to laugh. And like you mentioned in another article, we have little choice to accept that these people have power, and try against all odds to educate them.
Because what's so infuriating is that no longer can we just hope that these people won't vote. Because Republicans need them to vote—manipulating their ignorance is the only way that they can get elected. And so they will.
And yet Democrats keep telling themselves they need to stop catering to the overly "woke", not realizing that it isn't their choice to make. They will always be associated with them because Republicans want them to be, and their propaganda networks will ensure it.
What we face here is a bizarre class war. The educated and well informed, along with what is still a majority of low-income Americans and a bunch of ideological (yet also poorly informed) progressives, vs. the ultra-wealthy, their alliance of Evangelical Christians, a class of sociopathic, affluent elitists, and a critical mass of low-income, brainwashed dullards conned into playing for the wrong team.
If we could only convince the latter group that they've been taken for a ride—but that would mean they'd need to set aside their hubris enough to understand how much they have to lose.
I wish I could argue against this. I live in a fairly blue area, and I'm sick of the increasingly in-group behavior and language of the educated PMCs around me, treating the entirety of flyover country like the should be grateful for whatever neoliberalism gives to them and how DARE they not promptly adopt whatever culture-war virtue signal that all the Morally Correct people are using. There's a real gap in communication.
On the other hand...I know that IQ tests for voting would never work out or become a political football, but shouldn't people at least have SOME clue? Trillions spent in education, yet we're getting dumber. (So much for that Blue Tribe canard.) And meanwhile, the world is getting more and more complex. Where does this go? Some kind of new hierarchy (above/below the API)? Civilizational crash? World War III to hit the reset button? AGI to save us from ourselves (or wipe us all out; at this point, I'd take either)
Funny enough, ever since the GOP began consistently winning non-college voters and losing college-educated voters (2014-2016), right-wingers have made a concerted effort to make criticizing the electorate on any kind of intelligence-related grounds taboo. I'd settle for breaking that taboo for starters. And of course it's not good political strategy. No candidate, politician, or political operative who wants to win should say it. But it does need to be said at least occasionally.
There's always been a strong anti-intellectual strain in the GOP, driven by their "the Earth is 6000 years old" gullible base and indignation over their kids going away to college and LEAVING GOD. It seems to be coagulating now...the anti-vax movement is downright PROUD of their stupidity.
The thing is, educationally, the electorate used to be mixed. Dems used to win post-grads but also HS grads, and the GOP used to win most of what was in between. Now things have shifted into a neat divide: educated voters mostly go blue, uneducated go red.
The best way to solve this problem is to have everyone pass a civics test if they want to vote. That would pretty much cripple the GOP because their base would not be intelligent enough to pass one.
ANY testing becomes a cudgel in the wrong hands; I.E. my question is name the three branches of government, but yours is to explain the background to the 1812 war.
I think it’s very silly to claim that the Democrat’s policy platforms reflect the interests of the working class. This is the party under which NAFTA and the TPP were instituted. Under which the banks were bailed out following the 2008 financial crisis — a crisis that required Clinton’s defanging of Glass-Steagal to come into being. Just because the Republicans run an ostensibly cruder deception doesn’t mean Democrat voters aren’t also victims of elite grift. There’s no sense in whinging about how stupid republicans are when you could be acknowledging that you’ve both had the wool pulled over your eyes — to recognize that the infighting of the elite that partisan politics in the US represents will only ever make passing gestures to the interests of various cliques of working people as it hollows out the world for the benefit of the few.
NAFTA and the TPP have repressed the power of labor and the availability of well paying jobs by enabling corporations to displace the work to a more exploitable working class without fewer labor protections outside of the country. This results in higher competition for work in the United States — driving working people into less secure employment like uber and creating downward pressure on wages for remaining work that does not require a degree. Further if that weren’t bad enough for working people — the resulting shipping chains that the huge expansion of globalization that those agreements birthed is one of the largest contributors to the climate crisis — a crisis that it’s very obvious will hurt working people to an immense and disproportionate degree.
No thoughts on disarming glass-steagal (Clinton) and the 2008 bailouts (Obama) also?
I wasn’t responding to your article in full — just addressing a particular point that I think is critical to the implications of the overall goals (I’m presuming Democratic leadership?) your article serves.
It seems that 20% of folks are not quite best friends with the written word, while an impressive 53% are rocking their reading skills at a sixth-grade level or below—it's like a literary time warp!
Trump's secret weapon is that he talks in the same way stupid people think. His thoughts don't follow any kind of coherent reasoning, are completely unmoored from facts, and is generally a Stream of consciousness recital of what he wants to be true.
In the defense of stupid people, society has spent a lot of effort over the past few decades in making an economy that rewards efficiency and intelligence. That works out for us, but if you are on the left side of the intelligence bell curve, your life is going to be a lot more stressful and a lot less pleasant than someone who is smarter.
The thing is, it's not just stupidity. It's closed-mindedness, it's lack of curiosity. People can't really do much about their own IQ, but not caring about how the world works is a choice.
You hit the nail on the head, my friend, when you talked about how the party's economic platforms haven't changed. I am so very tired of hearing how the Democrats have abandoned the working class. It's horseshit. The working class abandoned the Democrats.
The Republicans have spent decades prying them away from the one party that represents their economic interests by appealing to their cultural interests. And yet all we've heard after Trump's victories is how we elitists are blind to the struggles of the working class. This is only half true.
The truth is that liberal/leftist elitists still vote for economic policies that distribute wealth downward. It's the conservative/right-wing elitists who support trickle-down economics, and are all in on the project of fleecing the rubes and taking advantage of their lack of education and poorly-informed worldview.
The Democrats have nothing to apologize for, except for the fact that they don't talk to people like a photographer waving a stuffed toy in front of a child to get him to laugh. And like you mentioned in another article, we have little choice to accept that these people have power, and try against all odds to educate them.
Because what's so infuriating is that no longer can we just hope that these people won't vote. Because Republicans need them to vote—manipulating their ignorance is the only way that they can get elected. And so they will.
And yet Democrats keep telling themselves they need to stop catering to the overly "woke", not realizing that it isn't their choice to make. They will always be associated with them because Republicans want them to be, and their propaganda networks will ensure it.
What we face here is a bizarre class war. The educated and well informed, along with what is still a majority of low-income Americans and a bunch of ideological (yet also poorly informed) progressives, vs. the ultra-wealthy, their alliance of Evangelical Christians, a class of sociopathic, affluent elitists, and a critical mass of low-income, brainwashed dullards conned into playing for the wrong team.
If we could only convince the latter group that they've been taken for a ride—but that would mean they'd need to set aside their hubris enough to understand how much they have to lose.
Couldn’t have said it better. Glad you liked the article.
I wish I could argue against this. I live in a fairly blue area, and I'm sick of the increasingly in-group behavior and language of the educated PMCs around me, treating the entirety of flyover country like the should be grateful for whatever neoliberalism gives to them and how DARE they not promptly adopt whatever culture-war virtue signal that all the Morally Correct people are using. There's a real gap in communication.
On the other hand...I know that IQ tests for voting would never work out or become a political football, but shouldn't people at least have SOME clue? Trillions spent in education, yet we're getting dumber. (So much for that Blue Tribe canard.) And meanwhile, the world is getting more and more complex. Where does this go? Some kind of new hierarchy (above/below the API)? Civilizational crash? World War III to hit the reset button? AGI to save us from ourselves (or wipe us all out; at this point, I'd take either)
Funny enough, ever since the GOP began consistently winning non-college voters and losing college-educated voters (2014-2016), right-wingers have made a concerted effort to make criticizing the electorate on any kind of intelligence-related grounds taboo. I'd settle for breaking that taboo for starters. And of course it's not good political strategy. No candidate, politician, or political operative who wants to win should say it. But it does need to be said at least occasionally.
There's always been a strong anti-intellectual strain in the GOP, driven by their "the Earth is 6000 years old" gullible base and indignation over their kids going away to college and LEAVING GOD. It seems to be coagulating now...the anti-vax movement is downright PROUD of their stupidity.
The thing is, educationally, the electorate used to be mixed. Dems used to win post-grads but also HS grads, and the GOP used to win most of what was in between. Now things have shifted into a neat divide: educated voters mostly go blue, uneducated go red.
Houyhnhnms vs. Yahoos.
The best way to solve this problem is to have everyone pass a civics test if they want to vote. That would pretty much cripple the GOP because their base would not be intelligent enough to pass one.
ANY testing becomes a cudgel in the wrong hands; I.E. my question is name the three branches of government, but yours is to explain the background to the 1812 war.
True. They elected Obama and then Biden.
I think it’s very silly to claim that the Democrat’s policy platforms reflect the interests of the working class. This is the party under which NAFTA and the TPP were instituted. Under which the banks were bailed out following the 2008 financial crisis — a crisis that required Clinton’s defanging of Glass-Steagal to come into being. Just because the Republicans run an ostensibly cruder deception doesn’t mean Democrat voters aren’t also victims of elite grift. There’s no sense in whinging about how stupid republicans are when you could be acknowledging that you’ve both had the wool pulled over your eyes — to recognize that the infighting of the elite that partisan politics in the US represents will only ever make passing gestures to the interests of various cliques of working people as it hollows out the world for the benefit of the few.
NAFTA and TPP were crafted to help Americans have access to cheaper goods which is what the working class wants above all else.
NAFTA and the TPP have repressed the power of labor and the availability of well paying jobs by enabling corporations to displace the work to a more exploitable working class without fewer labor protections outside of the country. This results in higher competition for work in the United States — driving working people into less secure employment like uber and creating downward pressure on wages for remaining work that does not require a degree. Further if that weren’t bad enough for working people — the resulting shipping chains that the huge expansion of globalization that those agreements birthed is one of the largest contributors to the climate crisis — a crisis that it’s very obvious will hurt working people to an immense and disproportionate degree.
No thoughts on disarming glass-steagal (Clinton) and the 2008 bailouts (Obama) also?
You seem to be misunderstanding the point of my article. Voters don’t understand what NAFTA or the TPP is.
I wasn’t responding to your article in full — just addressing a particular point that I think is critical to the implications of the overall goals (I’m presuming Democratic leadership?) your article serves.
It seems that 20% of folks are not quite best friends with the written word, while an impressive 53% are rocking their reading skills at a sixth-grade level or below—it's like a literary time warp!