We are now at the tail end of a terrible political season. The Republican party leaders want to win back the Senate and the White House in November. They had several potential presidential candidates running against the Republican who was already promised the chance. The want-to-be’s couldn’t be.
The only woman running started off by saying that she raised 23 foster children. It turned out that she got paid to take care of each of them for a week or two, not quite the same as raising them. During a debate, she could not remember whether she had five kids or three - she went with three. Then she went public about meeting a random woman who attributed her son’s mental retardation to a vaccination that he had received. The candidate’s statement made us wonder whether she herself had been given the same medication. She actually won in Iowa and wanted us to consider her a serious person and candidate. How dumb did she think we were?
This failed candidate was followed by one who thought that the chair of the FED was a traitor for trying to help the economy, the job for which he was appointed. This challenger was desperate to close three federal agencies but could only remember two of them. How could he imagine that we were as dumb as he was?
The next one wanted to build an American community on the Moon. We could have called them Lunatics but ended up calling him one.
The next one wanted an end to prenatal testing, birth control and abortion for any reason and he was against sex between married couples who do not plan to have more children. At some point his wife must have realized that this applied to them. The candidate thought that we were dumb enough to go along with this scenario maybe because his wife was.
Then there was the one who could not keep up with current events or past affairs. He wasn’t sure what was going on in Libya but was sure that the President was doing the wrong thing there. He also claimed that he could not recall some of his most expensive affairs. He hoped that we were as dumb as he was.
At the end with none of the other contenders appearing reasonable enough to fool the American voter, the candidate who was originally promised the run got the nod.
He attacked the President on the economy promising to fix our economic problems because he had 25 years experience at a private equity company. Instead of letting us see all his good work, he kept the dealings secret fearing we wouldn’t understand and hoping that we were too dumb to ask questions. When we did ask, he made sure that none of his work would be made public. He thought that we would just assume that he did good work because he made a lot of money doing it.
He announced that he wanted to change the tax code to not only keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in place but to actually reduce their taxes further. When asked how his projected $5 trillion tax cut for the rich over a ten year period would help the economy, he gave a Reagan answer that the money will trickle down from the “job creators” to the middle class. He assumed that we would forget that the economy was booming when taxes on the rich were higher - like in the 50s, 60s and 70s and the 90s up until the tax breaks started in 2001. After those breaks were put in place the economy tanked. The stock market had lost half its value, we lost eight million jobs and the unemployment rate doubled. The Bush tax cuts combined with our entrance into two unnecessary wars doubled our national debt.
The Republican nominee has now said that he will fix the economy by cutting tax rates for the rich but that it would not mean that the middle class would have to pay more taxes. He went on to promise that it would be revenue neutral neither adding to nor subtracting from our economy and also said it would not reduce the amount of taxes the rich pay. So in essence his tax plan would have no effect on anyone or anything. Did he think we wouldn’t notice? Could we be that dumb?
And yet with such a terrible candidate running against such an excellent and popular President, you would think that it would be no contest. Surely the vast majority of the population would be smart enough to realize that the contender has no clothes, but now, weeks before the election, we are asked to believe that the race is close. The President was well ahead before the debate after his opponent was heard telling a small private audience that he believed that 47% of Americans not only pay no income tax but also consider themselves victims and cannot ever be made responsible. (He has since said that he was wrong - clearly an honest mistake.) Now, after the President seemed too polite in the debate, the public opinion allegedly has swung in favor of the opponent. The people who changed their minds did so because they thought that the contender seemed more confident even as he consistently misrepresented his position and denied the President’s accomplishments. It was form over content. How dumb could voters be to change our mind based on a 90 minute appearance?
I think that the answer is in and it is not pretty.
Many of us really are that dumb.
But how did this happen? Who’s to blame? It could be our education system that fails to teach most students how to think. It could be our parents who didn’t show us role models of intelligent adults making considered decisions. It could be our media which have failed to ask the hard questions leaving many of us unaccustomed to thinking critically. It could be our culture that distracts us with more information than we can juggle.
Whatever the cause, the condition is clear. The solution will have to be a concerted effort to improve ourselves as a people. It begins by admitting that we have a problem. Many of us are dumb and the condition is both contagious and dangerous.
Let us be smart enough to realize it and persistent enough to improve it.
The only woman running started off by saying that she raised 23 foster children. It turned out that she got paid to take care of each of them for a week or two, not quite the same as raising them. During a debate, she could not remember whether she had five kids or three - she went with three. Then she went public about meeting a random woman who attributed her son’s mental retardation to a vaccination that he had received. The candidate’s statement made us wonder whether she herself had been given the same medication. She actually won in Iowa and wanted us to consider her a serious person and candidate. How dumb did she think we were?
This failed candidate was followed by one who thought that the chair of the FED was a traitor for trying to help the economy, the job for which he was appointed. This challenger was desperate to close three federal agencies but could only remember two of them. How could he imagine that we were as dumb as he was?
The next one wanted to build an American community on the Moon. We could have called them Lunatics but ended up calling him one.
The next one wanted an end to prenatal testing, birth control and abortion for any reason and he was against sex between married couples who do not plan to have more children. At some point his wife must have realized that this applied to them. The candidate thought that we were dumb enough to go along with this scenario maybe because his wife was.
Then there was the one who could not keep up with current events or past affairs. He wasn’t sure what was going on in Libya but was sure that the President was doing the wrong thing there. He also claimed that he could not recall some of his most expensive affairs. He hoped that we were as dumb as he was.
At the end with none of the other contenders appearing reasonable enough to fool the American voter, the candidate who was originally promised the run got the nod.
He attacked the President on the economy promising to fix our economic problems because he had 25 years experience at a private equity company. Instead of letting us see all his good work, he kept the dealings secret fearing we wouldn’t understand and hoping that we were too dumb to ask questions. When we did ask, he made sure that none of his work would be made public. He thought that we would just assume that he did good work because he made a lot of money doing it.
He announced that he wanted to change the tax code to not only keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in place but to actually reduce their taxes further. When asked how his projected $5 trillion tax cut for the rich over a ten year period would help the economy, he gave a Reagan answer that the money will trickle down from the “job creators” to the middle class. He assumed that we would forget that the economy was booming when taxes on the rich were higher - like in the 50s, 60s and 70s and the 90s up until the tax breaks started in 2001. After those breaks were put in place the economy tanked. The stock market had lost half its value, we lost eight million jobs and the unemployment rate doubled. The Bush tax cuts combined with our entrance into two unnecessary wars doubled our national debt.
The Republican nominee has now said that he will fix the economy by cutting tax rates for the rich but that it would not mean that the middle class would have to pay more taxes. He went on to promise that it would be revenue neutral neither adding to nor subtracting from our economy and also said it would not reduce the amount of taxes the rich pay. So in essence his tax plan would have no effect on anyone or anything. Did he think we wouldn’t notice? Could we be that dumb?
And yet with such a terrible candidate running against such an excellent and popular President, you would think that it would be no contest. Surely the vast majority of the population would be smart enough to realize that the contender has no clothes, but now, weeks before the election, we are asked to believe that the race is close. The President was well ahead before the debate after his opponent was heard telling a small private audience that he believed that 47% of Americans not only pay no income tax but also consider themselves victims and cannot ever be made responsible. (He has since said that he was wrong - clearly an honest mistake.) Now, after the President seemed too polite in the debate, the public opinion allegedly has swung in favor of the opponent. The people who changed their minds did so because they thought that the contender seemed more confident even as he consistently misrepresented his position and denied the President’s accomplishments. It was form over content. How dumb could voters be to change our mind based on a 90 minute appearance?
I think that the answer is in and it is not pretty.
Many of us really are that dumb.
But how did this happen? Who’s to blame? It could be our education system that fails to teach most students how to think. It could be our parents who didn’t show us role models of intelligent adults making considered decisions. It could be our media which have failed to ask the hard questions leaving many of us unaccustomed to thinking critically. It could be our culture that distracts us with more information than we can juggle.
Whatever the cause, the condition is clear. The solution will have to be a concerted effort to improve ourselves as a people. It begins by admitting that we have a problem. Many of us are dumb and the condition is both contagious and dangerous.
Let us be smart enough to realize it and persistent enough to improve it.
