Serious question - How did we become this stupid?

[matt819]

Charlie Pierce wrote Idiot America in 2010. I just put it on hold at the library. Maybe that will answer my question.

The answers are easy-ish: hate radio, Fox, Republicans generally, Evangelicals, the NRA, education funding, Trump, etc. But something tells me it goes beyond that.

What prompted this is the video of the crazy lady at Walmart calling mask wearers cultists.

It's beyond stupid, really. It's hate. It's the utter absence of empathy toward anyone else. Forget minorities or Muslims or libtards. These people hate everyone and everything. No critical thinking. And this is coming not only from young people. The videos out there show score of late Gen-Xers and Boomers.

It's truly breathtaking. And, sure, these are just the stories that make onto the internet. Maybe we're really okay. Sort of. Maybe these are the sorts of things that happen in every generation. We just didn't know it or pay attention or care all that much because there was no internet.

No, this is not a sudden realization. And, no, nothing surprises me anymore. But I mean this when I ask if anyone is really studying this. Not for the purposes of comedy or pop psychology. But really examining it. There is no question that Jim Acosta was right yesterday when he said that all who are left in the WH are kool-aid drinkers and next of kin. And there is also no question in my mind that the followers beyond the beltway are absolute cultists. How do you deprogram 60 million people?

Anyone know of any serious books about this? Any other thoughts?

And is there an emoji stronger than ? Does this count?

[highplainsdem]

1. My best guess is that it's mostly RW talk radio -- hate radio. It provides brainwashing 24/7

and goes into a lot of crazy conspiracy stuff that barely surfaces at Fox News.

[handmade34]

7. deeper question

why do people buy into it?

mental laziness?
my partner says hate...
my daughter thinks stressful life and it is just easy to blame someone, anyone?

what has happened to our Country? I am completely flummoxed

[highplainsdem]

10. It provides simplistic answers to people who are anxious about societal changes.

It makes them blameless for societal problems and explains why they should blame others -- including conspiracies by others.

It's a get-out-of-all-responsibility card, and a security blanket of ratiionalizations they can cling to even while they're ranting about those horrible others.

[ace3csusm]

31. Education and not willing to change with the times...

I agree that Right wing radio and Fox backs up their view of why should my kids go to college, i didnt go and i am fine ... THey have been left behind and blame everyone else as to why they are in current situation... Until we change our view for schooling for everyone we will not progress... This means funds and better teacher pay and we need free college for all ... in my view ... Also i think they hate themselves why else would you vote against your interest year and year out...

[Yeehah]

44. People just ain't that smart

Humans are murderous apes with technology that we use to destroy our habitat.

[DBoon]

14. It is political pornography

Hate radio and Fox know how to push very deep emotional levels that override our more recent rational brain

They induce a perpetual state of fear and anger that is then channeled against convenient targets.

[highplainsdem]

18. Hate radio much more than Fox. You don't realize, until you force yourself to listen to hate radio

for a while, just how vicious and insane it is.


Atlantic article from last year that explains how talk radio went so far right and dragged the Republican Party with it:


https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/talk-radio-made-todays-republican-party/596380/

In its early phases, conservative talk radio had exhibited a pragmatic streak that would sound foreign today. In 1994, Limbaugh cautioned against single- issue voting. He advised television viewers—he had a TV program from 1992 to 1996—not to oppose Mitt Romney, the Republican then running as a moderate against the liberal senator Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts. As Limbaugh explained, electing Romney, despite his lack of conservative fervor, would be a step “in the right direction.”

Hosts never loved moderates, and never hesitated to criticize them for actions out of step with hosts’ vision for the country. But they understood that such figures were crucial to securing a majority, without which their preferred agenda had no shot.

But this detente started to break down as the 2000s progressed. In one 2005 harangue prompted by Republicans who voted against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Limbaugh declared, “There’s no such thing as a moderate. A moderate is just a liberal disguise, and they are doing everything they can to derail the conservative agenda.” He deemed such behavior “unacceptable” and read listeners the names of those Republicans voting no. Even so, Limbaugh still crucially refrained from calling for those Republicans to lose.

A year later, Sean Hannity demonstrated that things were shifting further during a conversation with a caller who was fuming at Republican-in-name-only, or RINO, senators. Hannity agreed, and it wasn’t just moderate senators who aroused their ire: Hannity explicitly included Senators John McCain, Chuck Hagel, and Lindsey Graham, all of whom were generally conservative but who had departed from the party line on several significant issues. (Sherwood Boehlert, a true Republican moderate, quipped to me in an interview that “McCain is no more moderate than I am a Communist.”)

As the number of ideological moderates declined, the definition of RINOism expanded. Any Republican who sought out compromise or who rejected political warfare found him or herself a target of conservative media. This would only intensify with each passing year—and not just for political reasons. Hosts, buffeted by ever fiercer competition for the conservative audience, as right-wing digital outlets like RedState and Breitbart proliferated, had to perform before millions of frustrated and fickle listeners.

-snip-

Much more at the link.

[DBoon]

20. It is the 2 minute hate of 1984

Complete blind emotional release

[ms liberty]

53. This is an interestingpiece. Marking for later. n/t

[Dream Girl]

2. Facebook

[malaise]

3. Read Al Gore's 2007 The Assault on Reason

Excellent book

[BittyJenkins]

4. Ronald Reagan

He created Rush Limbaugh
He stopped civics from being a requirement
He started trickle down economics
He was the beginning of the end

[Yavin4]

28. Further back. It was Nixon.

In his desperation for the presidency, he assumed George Wallace's supporters, the infamous Southern Strategy. Rove, Stone, Manifort, Pat Buchanan, Rumsfeld, Cheaney, et al. all came from Nixon.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. 'Twas ever thus.

[HotTeaBag]

6. I think of your easy-ish answers, only one is relevant - education funding.

The rest are symptoms of the problem.

I also don't think stupidity put Trump in the White House, I think anger did.

Anger at the unfairness of society, anger at the 'other', and most importantly and most insidious - anger at ourselves.

[chowder66]

12. Unfortunately there are highly or well educated people who buy into crap.

I personally think it's the internet. People are finding their tribes online and getting emboldened.

[HotTeaBag]

17. Which is why I mentioned that I don't think it's stupidity.

The through-lines that seems to connect Trump's base of support are anger and resentment.

The rest of his support comes from the reasonably well-heeled (the average Trump supporter in 2016 earned $70,000+), who simply want to make more money than they believe they would if a Democrat were in office.

[ms liberty]

52. Yea, they used to think they were alone or nearly alone in their

Conspiracy theories and craziness. Now they have their own niche on the internet and they think their numbers are larger than the really are.

[ZZenith]

8. November 22nd 1963

[BeyondGeography]

22. You could do worse than to pinpoint Texas as the epicenter of our slide to insanity

Rep. Bruce Alger and the mink coat mob, Reverend Criswell, maybe the original radical right fundy preacher, the comical fetishization by the same mink coat types of General Edwin Walker as a would-be savior of America (a closeted gay man who was going to teach those commies a lesson and ended up getting busted in a public toilet for public lewdness in the 70s when he had faded into obscurity), nihilistic oil men like H.L. Hunt, and Ted Dealey cheering them all on at the Morning News.

That whole noxious stew that was festering in Dallas in the run-up to Nov. 22 might just have remained where it belonged, on the fringes of American public life, instead of ending up at center stage. One thing both Kennedys were exceptionally good at was playing offense against those bastards. Would that Oswald’s bullet aimed straight at Walker’s head didn’t hit that window frame making that the murder that defined him. Such is fate.

[ZZenith]

29. It's been all downhill from there.

You get away with whacking a U.S. president you can pretty much get away with anything.

[Yavin4]

9. Indulging the stupid amongst us enables the 1% to enact policies that help them acquire wealth and

power.

No one would vote for tax cuts for the rich, de-regulating businesses, or weakening labor. So, convince them that they're voting to keep minorities and women in their place, stop immigrants, stop abortions, protect guns, etc.

We have an entire political party whose base is comprised of stupid people.

[sanatanadharma]

11. America is a fantasyland of fiction, friction, fabulists and frauds

The subject is serious. A book need not be, but ought to be thorough.
I suggest
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
by Kurt Andersen

from a review:
"America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by impresarios and their audiences, by hucksters and their suckers. Believe-whatever-you-want fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA."

"Over the course of five centuries—from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials—our love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies—every citizen was free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody."

"If you want to understand Donald Trump and the culture of twenty-first-century America, if you want to know how the lines between reality and illusion have become dangerously blurred, you must read this book."

[unblock]

13. 40 years of right wing brainwashing, legitimizing hate and stupidity

They've been railing against "ivory tower elitists" for decades now. Blowing smoke up the butts of idiots flattering them that their "gut" is as smart as the conclusions of experts with the best education and years of focused, peer-reviewed research.

And the media has long insisted of presenting "both sides" as if they're equal, even when they're talking about something factual like in which direction the sun rises.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

15. Much of it comes from superstitious thinking such as...

... the idea that "God" will punish everyone in America for allowing abortion to be legal.

That's crazy, but imagine actually thinking that way. Then you'd likely resent the "damn librals" for supporting women's choice and how it could bring God's wrath upon everyone.

There's idiots like Pat Robertson of the 700 Club blaming the Hurricane Katrina disaster on the "sinful" behaviors in New Orleans, and he's just one of many church leaders preaching that kind of stuff.

Now they have a leader in Trump, who makes liberals more upset than just about anyone else. In their superstitious minds, it's the "Godless liberals" who are to blame for the erosion of this country's favored status with God. Hence, he's the best tool for trying to quash them despite his own many flaws.

[Hoyt]

16. Stupid person are the reason. Fox, hate radio, etc., pander to stupid haters.

[lostnfound]

19. Cruelty toward slaves and descendants of slaves was there all along

Never understood why racism was still largely the whites hating the blacks, when it was the blacks who had been enslaved and abused, who had plenty of reasons to hate.

There is zero empathy in a system of slavery. It is the opposite of empathy.

[cayugafalls]

21. Our society has lost empathy and compassion. But it is not our fault.

Society has become self centered and isolationist. A vast majority of people are self centered and concerned with their own internal gratification. If they are not instantly satisfied, served, welcomed, appreciated, lauded, recognized then they become afraid that their own self worth has been insulted.

We used to care about one another, even if we politically disagreed. There used to be some consensus of compassion and connection that would keep people from going off on each other as we were all "part of the common good".

With the advent of instant communication, dense populations, social media our connectedness, while becoming quicker and more easily attainable, has become more disconnected and distributed. We are connected, but distributed across the medium so that we are disconnected from facial and body cues that would normally regulate social discourse.

It is not that people are bad or wrong, just disconnected and isolated within their worldview. This has been taken advantage of by 1%, main stream media and bad actors to create the current us vs them climate. Rule of the masses is easiest when the masses view the enemy as the other and not the ruler.

I could go on about this more, but I feel that I have said what I wanted to say.

[Wounded Bear]

23. "What's the Matter With Kansas" is a classic look at what has happened...

and yeah, all those factors come into play when explaining how stupid Americans have become.

[betsuni]

55. I recently reread "What's the Matter with Kansas" -- very good book.

[Wounded Bear]

56. It's a bit dated now, but still fully applicable...nt

[betsuni]

57. "Banana Republicans, How the Right Wing Is Turning America Into a One-Party State"

is also dated (2004) but an excellent source. Highly, highly recommended. Wish the authors had done a more recent version.

[CrispyQ]

24. Ignorance.

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing."
~Karl Rove

Back in the 80s the repubs focused on filling positions on Boards of Education across the country, while the dems were running as fast as they could from the word liberal. The right created think tanks to craft their message & bought up radio stations to broadcast it & for 40 years our side hasn't uttered a peep of challenge to the message of hate & divisiveness that blankets most of rural America. So here we are with grown men wearing tee shirts that read, "I'd rather be a Russian than a Democrat." We have farmers, devastated by the Con's trade policies but swear they would never vote democratic. We have people who love the ACA but hate Obamacare.

Our side needs a marketing department, STAT! We are so far behind the 8-ball on messaging, capturing the narrative, framing the debate, whatever you want to call it. I doubt we'll do anything differently, though.

[matt819]

25. I'm reading Wilmington's Lie

About the events in Wilmington, NC in 1898 and how they gave rise to the white supremacy movements we see today.

It is extremely difficult reading. Not the writing. The story itself. The descriptions and images of the utter heights (depths?) of white hatred for slaves, former slaves, etc. It's utterly horrifying. And yet, as many have pointed out over the course of the demonstrations in the last few months, white Americans (and black as well?) had never heard of it. Or Tulsa. As the saying goes, WTAF?

Thanks for the referrals to Al Gore and the others. Books are now on hold at the library. I suspect I'll end up buying them, as making my way through them is likely to be a long haul.

[genxlib]

26. I am convinced

That we have a case of nationwide, untreated case of PTSD from 9/11.

I think it undermined our self-righteous confidence in a way that caused people to overreact towards nationalism. That in turn caused a breakdown into tribalism beyond anything we have seen in my lifetime.

It is just a factor in an overall slide that has been driven by right wing media. But I think it is a major factor. It is like one of those childhood traumas that are behind seemingly unrelated personality disorders but can't be treated without intense therapy.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

34. I think that's part of it too.

Not to mention the underlying and lingering anxiety after the Russians got nuclear weapons. The ensuing insanity from that scare has been with us for decades.

[irisblue]

27. The well known streak of American anti intellectualism, Newt Gingrich & YouTube vids

"egg head professors" 40s, 50, till today.

Gingrich & his henchmen like John Kasich in the late 80s early 90s till entriched till now

Tons of hate videos on YouTube.

[Baitball Blogger]

30. You know how young girls learn to hide their intelligence to be accepted by

their peers? Well, everything we do in a Capitalistic system involves hiding our intelligence in order to be accepted by groups or employers. If you need to make an income, your skill set better be unique, or you can't show too much independence.

[Miguelito Loveless]

32. I date it to Reagan eliminating the FCC fairness doctrine

That removed the obligation of truth from broadcasters and led to rightwing radio’s rise.

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

48. +1 and most news/content is now controlled by so few.

[lagomorph777]

33. Glyphosate and other chemicals introduced on an industrial scale. Plus the propaganda machine.

Deadly combination, like methamphetamine and Nazi propaganda in the 1930s.

[tblue37]

35. This is the most famous one:

Richard Hofstadter: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

[Initech]

36. Well, conservatives are very good at propaganda.

They have 3 24/7 news networks dedicated to spreading propaganda, and they own and control over 11,000 local TV stations and an entire monopoly of AM radio stations in America. So they can pretty much say anything and it will go unchecked.

[Midnight Writer]

37. It's not stupidity. Propagandists are exploiting and encouraging people's personality disorders.

People who would normally suppress their disorders to live a pretty normal live are instead being encouraged to amplify their disorder, letting it take over their lives and damaging others with impunity.

[wiggs]

40. yes but the people who create and spread the propaganda aren't mere operatives, they are

trained...using advertising and marketing skills learned in schools' psychology, social ecology, and economics departments. They know what works...they know the science, the consumers of information, their vulnerabilities etc and are hired to sell either products or ideas.

Just as a naive, inexperienced, untrained person has little chance against a skilled salesperson...low information, narrow minded people have no chance against a deliberate, expert misinformation campaign. It's just an uneven playing field.

[Midnight Writer]

41. Exactly. Their methods are straight out of sales and marketing, exploitation with no conscience.

[Kablooie]

38. I don't know why so many Americans have succumbed to cultish thinking...

but we will need a major flushing out of the disease in our government before we can recover.

The problem is that the cultist votes count just like everyone else's and while they nearly match the number of non-cultists, removing that element from government will be very difficult.

[wiggs]

39. the sciences of psychology, marketing, and social manipulation work. We have allowed the very

powerful tools developed for purpose of selling people goods to be used to convince people how they should think, behave, treat others, believe, vote, and act...for political purposes. Started more than 40 years ago, and is very very effective. Takes long term planning and effort. Political parties which believe in winning at all costs and in no low bars benefit most from this manipulation. And it ain't the democrats.

[Different Drummer]

42. I've always favored Isaac Asimov's explanation.

[Johnny2X2X]

43. This won't be popular, but we've always been this way

From its inception, the US has always been a country filled with castoffs and idiots. We've never been a highly educated society compared to our peer countries with the possible exception of a brief period after WWII.

This country has always valued bluster over thoughtful debate. Just look at our Presidential elections, rarely has the more intelligent candidate won. America has always had a disdain for intellectualism. We've had mostly simpletons as President, from Nixon, to Reagan, to LBJ, to Bush, Trump, Ford, Truman and even Eisenhower. None of those guys was near the top of their classes, none of them were all that intellectual.

I think Obama was brilliant, Bush I was reasonably smart for a leader, and Carter was very smart. Bill Clinton was extremely smart. But those are the exceptions, the rest of the Presidents in the modern era were pretty much of average intelligence for an ordinary job, much less the Presidency. I think if Trump had been born poor he would have ended up in jail or dead, no way he could have accomplished anything in his life. Bush II too.

That's just who we've always been. Now Trump is a new low, he's legitimately dumb for any job, he'd be the stupidest guy working at a gas station, he'd be the stupidest guy working at a Dairy Queen. He'd be nothing without his inherited wealth and status, nothing.

[Demonaut]

45. where do they get their news and opinions?..

brainwashed

[KY_EnviroGuy]

46. IMO, no book needed.

Throughout recorded human history, we have generally drifted toward the norms of selfishness, tribalism, greed, laziness and complacency. Just look at how many of us drift toward less knowledge, less manual labor at any cost, and less will to make the future better. Also look at the countless wars humanity has initiated and suffered through.

Layered on top of that is the fact that those who become extremely wealthy (from profits made off the majority of us) really want us commoners to be as dumb, uncaring and isolationist as possible. In addition, we humans live in denial of death and proven science and behave as if we will live forever but show little interest in protecting our common environment.

It's only when we work together as close-knit, loving communities for shared progressive goals with true public servants as leaders do we shed those primative human flaws listed above.

Thank goodness we get it right from time to time.

I'm making these statements based on my beliefs about the entirety of humanity, not American progressives.....and based primarily on my lifelong observations

[GulfCoast66]

47. I don't think we are any stupider than we ever were.

But before social media, Fox News and hate radio the idiots were isolated and had no way to find others that shared their stupidity.

Plus, the social sanction they often faced kept them quiet. But once they realized they were not alone they started feeling like they were correct all along. And the republicans fostered this and helped it along.

Finally, at least where I am from, the evangelical church did not get so involved in politics. Now it is what drives their movement.

But almost 30% of Americans no longer go to church. And despite our blaming education my god kids are getting a way better education than I did in public schools.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

49. It goes back a very long time.

Generations. Public schools were never entirely intended to create an educated populous. They came about more to provide a docile and somewhat literate workforce.

Keep in mind that the SAT came about as a way of identifying public school students who deserved a chance to enroll in an Ivy League school. Prior to that, their students came exclusively from private schools which were in the actual business of educating young people.

Plus, there's long been a strong anti-science bias in this country. A lot of it comes about because science is often poorly taught, and too many biology teachers are terrified to mention the word "evolution". Kids learn almost nothing about the scientific method, and their churches tell them that it's all a lie anyway, and that the very fact that science will change its mind about something is proof that science is wrong, not that science understands things like falsifiability. Smart people have long been contemptuously called "eggheads", as if they both looked odd and deserved contempt for their knowledge. Or expertise. There's even a book out there called The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols. It's a disheartening read.

Unfortunately, the notion that someone's completely uninformed and downright ignorant opinion is every bit as good as an informed and well-supported fact is well-entrenched in our culture. Maybe enough ignorant and uninformed idiots will get this disease and serve as object lessons to others.

I can only hope.

[Progressive Jones]

50. "We" didn't become stupid. "Those fucking people" are the stupid ones. nt

[GeorgeGist]

51. Reagan ...

the beginning of the STUPID movement.

[GusBob]

54. Television

Look a squirrel