Eric Alterman: The Problem of Republican Idiots

[marmar]

from the Nation:



The Problem of Republican Idiots

Eric Alterman
June 1, 2011 |

One aspect of American politics that receives insufficient attention is that a significant percentage of self-identified Republicans—around half—are complete idiots. And the candidates who wish to be elected by them must pander to them, either by being idiots themselves—see “Bachmann, Michele”—or pretending to be. Nobody in the MSM is empowered to say this aloud. Indeed, the very act of pointing it out brands one a “liberal elitist” who is biased against proud, patriotic conservatives.

Well, so be it. A quarter of Republicans questioned profess to believe that ACORN is definitely planning to steal the 2012 election while another 32 percent think it might be. These numbers are admittedly lower than the 52 percent who, in 2009, went on record accusing ACORN of having stolen the election for Obama, but this should strike a person with normal mental faculties as a mite surprising, given that the organization no longer exists. Similarly, a recent poll of Republicans found that 48 percent of those questioned believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States. Again, this is almost double the 28 percent who believed it in February, but it is still rather low, given that Hawaii released the president’s long-form birth certificate to satisfy exactly this group of noisy idiots.

These are rather obvious examples, but it is hardly an exaggeration to insist that this astonishing combination of willful ignorance and stubborn stupidity can be found virtually everywhere Republican politics are discussed. Consider the kerfuffle over Newt Gringrich’s derisive comments about Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, made not long ago on NBC’s Meet the Press. In the first place, there is the problem of Gingrich being on the program at all. He was, I never tire of pointing out, its single most frequently booked guest in 2009, with five appearances, even though he held no official position in government and is the only ex–Speaker of the House ever to be invited on the show. (Nancy Pelosi, the actual Speaker at the time, did not appear at all that year.) In addition, we have the complication that although Gingrich is portrayed in the MSM as a genuine intellectual and potential president of the United States, both notions are just as crazy as Gingrich is. How else to explain a grown man who professes to believe that Obama’s political views can be understood “only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior”? And what about his insistence that the Obama administration leads a “secular-socialist machine” that represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union? Is this not enough to earn the boy a rubber jumpsuit? ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/article/161078/problem-republican-idiots

[Skink]

1. I was going to click on the republican planet of the apes...

so I'll do that now.

[gratuitous]

2. Any number of people are indeed stupid

I can't disagree that half of Republicans are stone idiots. But why? There has been a concerted effort in the last 30 years to stupidify our national discourse, and surely Republican candidates and politicians have done their level best in that direction. But who ever challenges the stupid? Who ever reports that 57% of Republicans mistakenly think that ACORN still exists, let alone that ACORN is planning to "steal" the 2012 elections? And what in the hell does that question even mean?

The popular media have done a stellar job of informing us about the mental meanderings of Charlie Sheen, but how much time do they spend on real, live issues? I remember decades ago auto manufacturers complaining that they couldn't and shouldn't equip their cars with seat belts, and air bags as a standard feature was simply out of the question. Consumers wouldn't pay for it! How could they sell safety features? Buyers wanted speed and sex appeal, they didn't want to think about surviving collisions. It was such a downer.

Well, nowadays, you have all kinds of car commercials touting the safety features of their cars. Safety can indeed be sold, and living through an accident could be as thrilling as going 0 to 60 in 4.3 seconds (or whatever). Issues can be sold, too, and the reason there isn't an apparent "market" for talking about things that matter to people's everyday existence is because the popular media are so preoccupied with their junior high school fixations on who's sleeping with whom, and whether somebody has a pecker in their pants.