I know, there are multiple types of intelligence. And I am also aware one of the greatest writers of the nineteenth century, Abraham Lincoln, had very little in the way of formal education. And I am painfully aware how thoroughly unimpressive people sporting Ivy League credentials can be.
And anyone living in New England knows there is a clear distinction between uneducated and stupid.
But, really, is it too politically incorrect to point out that among the leading lights of the Republican right, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, none of them managed to stay in any college for more than two semesters? Limbaugh flunked out. Beck left a special program after a few classes.
Were all these guys simply too incandescentally brilliant to be able to tolerate the suffocating halls of academe? Were they simply so smart, they were unable to tolerate the stiffling effect of the classroom?
Or do the individual failures of each of these men add up to something, in the aggregate?
Yes, I understand, Anne Coulter graduated from Cornell.
And I understand, if I'm so smart how come I'm not making the tens of millions of dollars a year each of this fearsome trio is pulling in?
But sometimes, it's a head clearing experience to simply state the obvious: These men, individually and as a collection are simply not very bright. Each is, judged on listening to each one on multiple occasions, really pretty stupid.
Now, I know, H.L. Menkin's famous remark--you'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public--but really, is this not a case of the Emperor's new clothes?
Does it take a humble country doctor from New Hampshire to point out the plainly evident truth, these guys are simply not bright enough to chew gum and watch TV at the same time.
They are angry, and entertaining, and they voice the rage of the loser who failed in school and still isn't sure why, but he's been scarred (and quite possibly, scared) by the experience.
But should we listen to them?
It's not that we shouldn't listen to them because they are school drop outs and we only listen to people with the proper merit badges. It's just that when you listen to what these guys say, and then you look at what their own personal histories are...doesn't it make you wonder? I mean, is the reason for their appeal arising from their shared history of failure, their connection to rejection and being told they were inadequate and so now they know how to tap into that experience to connect with others who have had the same experience.
So is right wing talk radio simply a support group for losers?
I've frequently had the experience of listening to Rush and thinking--that sentence does not show the logical connection he thinks it does, and he is often so self satisfied and clearly thinks he has just trumped his imaginary opponent with a sequence like, "Well, if the liberals are so critical of our country, of our holding prisoners at Gitmo, then why don't they just leave the country and go find some place better?"
Not an "A" paper, that.
I can see the appeal of this sort of gleeful strutting of non sequitors to guys who showed up outside Obama rallies with their big guns strapped to their waists and backs. That's a sort of naked revellation of psychopathology. They were saying, "Okay, I'm a brain dead loser, but as long as I have this big gun, I'm just as important and potent and exciting as the guy you all came to see, the guy who went to Columbia and Harvard Law." He thinks he's so smart, but I've got this gun!
I don't know, this is probably not a very original insight, but nobody ever seems to talk about it, and I guess I had just missed it until now.
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