If poverty is grinding, what is stupidity?
We creak and groan under ignorance, which makes it heavy, deflating, crushing even, but mostly just enervating. Ignorance saps the vitality, wears down the alert mind.
Jelani Cobb points out a number I had not appreciated in the March 13th issue of the New Yorker. It takes 3/4 of the states to ratify an amendment to the Constitution and that number is, by my calculator, 37 states. Republicans now control state houses in 33 states.
This means an amendment banning flag burning, making marriage between homosexuals illegal, or forbidding deficit spending by the federal government is no longer a long shot.
It would take only 34 states to call for a Constitutional Convention and there all sorts of mischief could be wrought by the stupid at such a gathering. This could make the loading of the Supreme Court with reactionary justices almost beside the point.
Paul Ryan of the simian brow, Mitch McConnell would be the moderates in this show.
Radical things can happen when one party gains as much power as today's Republican party now has. In the past, that radical thing was for the good: As the Civil War wound down three amendments outlawing slavery, guaranteeing freed Black men the right to vote and the requirement for Due Process got passed. But the party that did those things, ironically sporting the name "Republican," was the polar opposite of today's namesake.
Ignorance is not the same thing as stupidity. Ignorant people may be intelligent and they may become informed and transformed from ignorant to aware. Stupid implies the inability to learn.
You can say, well both liberals and conservatives could benefit from increasing a willingness to listen, but actually, this is one of those things which sounds right, but isn't.
They were interviewing people in a rural Massachusetts town which had voted for Trump this morning. We were told these people resented people from east of Route 128 who would not listen to their concerns. The more I listened to these people, the more I thought, there's a good reason nobody listens to them: They are really stupid.
In this particular Massachusetts town, the clothing mills had closed down decades earlier and the town all but died. People told NPR they thought Trump had the right idea about immigrants. Had any immigrant taken any job in this town? Well, no, but the mills closed. That had to be because of immigrants or because of Mexico. Or something. They couldn't say. But Trump might do something.
It didn't bother them that Trump's cabinet was filled with billionaires. These down and out people respected billionaires. Billionaires must have been really smart to succeed like that. And now that they had their money, the billionaires might figure out how to get jobs for the people in this town so the poor people could make more money.
I can now understand the appeal of Trump's blue billionaire suit and his snazzy striped ties. He never showed up in blue jeans and shirtsleeves like Romney, trying to look all down homey. He showed up in front of his Trump airplane looking wealthy but he was there in their home town.
All this harkens back to the English king and his humble subjects: these subjects have become convinced they are stupid and inferior and the king shows up in his golden threads and great carriage, looking very superior, and he tells them he does not need them, but he will help them, not that they deserve help, but he is magnanimous and although he could live in his castle and let them live their desperate, squalid lives, he was going to help them.
All he asked is that they listen to him, adore him and support him.
But what can we actually hope to benefit from listening to any more of Donald Trump?
That we are all going to be winning; that the ACA replacement will be so much better and less expensive and cover more; that we will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it; that the wall will make any difference at all; that Muslims hate us; that we will expunge ISIS from the earth and no religious fanatics will rise to replace it; that there is such a thing as clean coal; that President Obama was born in Kenya and wire tapped Trump Tower; that vaccines cause mental retardation and autism; that climate change is a Chinese plot; that all we have to do to open up the factories again is to negotiate smarter trade deals; that immigrants are evil and criminal; that environmental regulations hurt business and kill jobs?
The lines are clearly drawn.
The question remains: What can any of us do about it?
We creak and groan under ignorance, which makes it heavy, deflating, crushing even, but mostly just enervating. Ignorance saps the vitality, wears down the alert mind.
Jelani Cobb points out a number I had not appreciated in the March 13th issue of the New Yorker. It takes 3/4 of the states to ratify an amendment to the Constitution and that number is, by my calculator, 37 states. Republicans now control state houses in 33 states.
This means an amendment banning flag burning, making marriage between homosexuals illegal, or forbidding deficit spending by the federal government is no longer a long shot.
It would take only 34 states to call for a Constitutional Convention and there all sorts of mischief could be wrought by the stupid at such a gathering. This could make the loading of the Supreme Court with reactionary justices almost beside the point.
Paul Ryan of the simian brow, Mitch McConnell would be the moderates in this show.
Radical things can happen when one party gains as much power as today's Republican party now has. In the past, that radical thing was for the good: As the Civil War wound down three amendments outlawing slavery, guaranteeing freed Black men the right to vote and the requirement for Due Process got passed. But the party that did those things, ironically sporting the name "Republican," was the polar opposite of today's namesake.
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| Stupid begat loathing |
Ignorance is not the same thing as stupidity. Ignorant people may be intelligent and they may become informed and transformed from ignorant to aware. Stupid implies the inability to learn.
But what we have in America today is not an inability to learn so much as an unwillingness to learn, a rejection of enlightenment for reasons which are not altogether clear--fear, resentment, loathing are all candidates. This type of stupid implies obstinance, stubborn refusal to listen.
You can say, well both liberals and conservatives could benefit from increasing a willingness to listen, but actually, this is one of those things which sounds right, but isn't.
In this particular Massachusetts town, the clothing mills had closed down decades earlier and the town all but died. People told NPR they thought Trump had the right idea about immigrants. Had any immigrant taken any job in this town? Well, no, but the mills closed. That had to be because of immigrants or because of Mexico. Or something. They couldn't say. But Trump might do something.
It didn't bother them that Trump's cabinet was filled with billionaires. These down and out people respected billionaires. Billionaires must have been really smart to succeed like that. And now that they had their money, the billionaires might figure out how to get jobs for the people in this town so the poor people could make more money.
I can now understand the appeal of Trump's blue billionaire suit and his snazzy striped ties. He never showed up in blue jeans and shirtsleeves like Romney, trying to look all down homey. He showed up in front of his Trump airplane looking wealthy but he was there in their home town.
All this harkens back to the English king and his humble subjects: these subjects have become convinced they are stupid and inferior and the king shows up in his golden threads and great carriage, looking very superior, and he tells them he does not need them, but he will help them, not that they deserve help, but he is magnanimous and although he could live in his castle and let them live their desperate, squalid lives, he was going to help them.
All he asked is that they listen to him, adore him and support him.
But what can we actually hope to benefit from listening to any more of Donald Trump?
That we are all going to be winning; that the ACA replacement will be so much better and less expensive and cover more; that we will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it; that the wall will make any difference at all; that Muslims hate us; that we will expunge ISIS from the earth and no religious fanatics will rise to replace it; that there is such a thing as clean coal; that President Obama was born in Kenya and wire tapped Trump Tower; that vaccines cause mental retardation and autism; that climate change is a Chinese plot; that all we have to do to open up the factories again is to negotiate smarter trade deals; that immigrants are evil and criminal; that environmental regulations hurt business and kill jobs?
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| What stupid wrought |
The lines are clearly drawn.
The question remains: What can any of us do about it?
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| When we believed stupid things |
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