The Dumbing Down of America: Who Lit the Fuse?

[Jnew28]

Please read: http://stupidpartymathvmyth.com/1/post/2015/10/the-dumbing-down-of-america-who-lit-the-fuse.html

"But how did we get to this point—of almost half the country falling into a cult of hate, or if not hate, then a total loss of critical thinking? We debate with facts, they retort with slogans. They literally have nothing. Hence the horrendous quality of Stupidparty presidential candidates in 2012 and now 2016. It’s gotten so bad that Stupidparty chumps are wantonly economically cutting their own throats by trying to eradicate healthcare, social security, education—all in order to further enrich the top 158 families that now control democracy itself. It has gotten so bad that even though each Stupidparty conspiracy theory not only gets nailed, but the perpetrators consistently get caught with their pants down—whether this be the Benghazi “Wally World” road trip, the IRS emails, Kim Davis and the Pope, the Pope’s Christian values—all in a short time frame—but few bother to connect the dots. The Stupidparty is a scam, it is a pyramid scheme."

[shraby]

1. It started with Reagan, followed by Bush with Dan Quayle, then Quayle entertained a run but

was stymied by potatoe.
The Bush the younger came on the scene and by then the stupid was rampant.

[burrowowl]

13. Yes that is where it started

and when he was Governor before he was President.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

16. I'll add, more specifically, it started with the 401K casino economy Rs sold and Dems were happy to

buy. Ultimately, it split the Democratic Party in half. Now traditional worker (Labor)-Dems and Wall Street/Sillicon Valley-Dems are going to tear the Party in half.

Dems traded stipends and pensions for the false promise of hitting the lottery. The result was to profoundly transform the way business is done: market concentration, inflated stock prices, tax avoidance, and executive pay replaced quality, a strong middle class, and worker protections.

And the Democratic Party bought it hook, line, and sinker. Talk about the Stupidparty and Stupidpunditary. Who was reporting this?

[JHB]

17. Nope. Earlier.

Like so many other Movement Conservative things, it started in the Goldwater days and festered under Nixon. Reagan is when the stench became so pervasive they got used to it.

[merrily]

2. Demonizing. Republicans demonize Democrats. Democrats demonize Republicans. The Tea Party demonizes

the left of the Republican Party. The left of the Republican Party demonizes the Tea Party. The left of the Democratic Party demonizes the right of the Democratic Party. The right of the Democratic Party demonizes the left of the Democratic Party.

Struggles for power and control, which both implicate ego, and wealth fuel it.

When and where did it start? My knee jerk is Lee Atwater. But, historians have proved to us that earliest American politicians were vile to each other.

[Trust Buster]

3. I just saw a poll on television tonight that reported that 65% of Republicans DON'T BELIEVE that

Trump's comments about the Hispanic judge WAS A RACIST COMMENT. Even the Republican party's top politicians call it a racist comment. Don't kid yourself, Wingnuts are willfully ignorant.

[Hoyt]

7. At least 35% might get it. But, will they care when they vote?

[Cosmocat]

25. Yep

People give the political parties too much credit.

They don't make these people this way, they just know the nature of the people and find ways to appeal to that nature.

[Rex]

4. Is it just America? All around the world too many think the world is 10k tops old.

Tops. I am allowing the 2,000 years when The One That Held The Ring ruled them all. Also the 700 years ruled by Magna Men.

[YOHABLO]

5. Reagan+FOX+ChristianEvanelicals+NRA+Teabaggers+reality tv+rap/country music

[FrodosPet]

9. I get most of your list

But why the hate on music? Nothing else in the world has more power to unite us, if we let it.

[womanofthehills]

10. Alex Jones is so way out there and they love him - it's the conspiracy stories

Last week he said Michelle Obama is really a man and Michelle killed Joan Rivers.
It's beyond bizarre what would even posses Jones to make up an insane story like this.

Speaking of Walmart, my friend is a teacher in a low to middle class neighborhood, and every Mon she asks her students what they did over the weekend. The majority say went to Walmart with their parent/parents. No parks, zoo, museums, hikes, etc.

[Socal31]

8. I would say that the modern world is more knowledgeable now than ever.

You used to have to be privileged to have access to the information that you can now instantly obtain.

People with a thirst for knowledge, the motivation to seek it, and the intelligence to comprehend it, have an unlimited wealth of resources now.

The magic of technology that allows this access, also exposes us to the average-and-below end of the spectrum. Rarely outside of listening to Uncle Bill's rantings at thanksgiving, would there be mental interaction and debate between people with such differing capacities.

In a nutshell, the same thing that allows a commoner like me to know so much about the design and function of a US thermonuclear warhead, also exposed me to Duckteenhoarderbachelordynasty.

[Blanks]

26. There's not a built in 'bullshit detector'...

On 'facts' though. If you want something to be true, just google it and you can find a source that will confirm your beliefs.

Sadly, my hate-filled right-wing younger brother unfriended me from Facebook (made himself invisible to me even) because a nephew of ours kept posting snopes articles to his propaganda. He (my brother) explained that "it doesn't have to be true", I asked him what that meant and he disappeared.

We may have all the information in the world at our fingertips, but there isn't anyone that can make us use that access to learn real facts.

[womanofthehills]

11. So true about the healthcare

One of my friends is currently divorcing her husband - an Alex Jones /Trump loving man. They have no health insurance - they have their own business but IN NO WAY was he going to get "Obama Care".

[PaulaFarrell]

12. I can't help but think tha a critical article using the phrase Stupidparty contributes to the demise

there's not a lot of 'smarting up' in that excerpt. But if you read Mark Twain, it seems Americans have always been this way. The difference is that the ignorant now have access to the internet to spread their views and get them reinforced by others like them. The real issue to me is the pandering at the top level to this, whether it's innate prejududices, or identity politics, or just general fear. We don't have leaders anymore, just vote-getters.

[Surya Gayatri]

14. This graphic tells the disturbing tale of Stupidparty peeps' reality defense mechansims:

[kairos12]

18. Winner, winner chicken dinner of the thread.

[Fumesucker]

15. If they are so stupid.. Why are they kicking our asses?

[Surya Gayatri]

20. Stupid is as stupid does...birds of a feather (and all that).

Stupid people vote for stupid people. They "recognize" and "resonate" with each other.

[Fumesucker]

22. Remember that they tricked our presumptive candidate

Tricked her into supporting and voting for arguably the worst foreign policy disaster in American history.

Overwhelmed by the intellectual might of a New England patrician with degrees from both Yale and Harvard, the naive young woman from flyover country was simply outclassed.

Who can blame her though, the entire nation, indeed the whole world was fooled by Bush. Who can forget the massive demonstrations urging Bush to just do it already?

?926875e5be5f93a8dc1e86b8d949ee54b77d1e0d

[Cosmocat]

27. Because they are "stupid"

the voters,that is ...

EVERYONE has biases of some kind.

But, at any given moment this country has a critical mass of 50.0001% or more voters whose biases overwhelm their capacity for decency or critical thought.

"stupid" is an over simplification, but is a general enough term to be accurate.

[sendero]

19. LOL....

...more blathering by someone that thinks elections have been about "facts" for the last 40 years. Guess what, "facts" are what the useless dollar-over-all media tells you is facts. "Facts" are words politicians spew endlessly knowing they are blatant lies.

People are on to the game and they are not playing any more. Look at our choices, a narcissistic blowhard or a neocon claiming to be a progressive. People are checking out, I know I am.

[snot]

21. Edward Bernays.

The secret: encode your messages so as to appeal (subliminally or otherwise) to people's most primitive desires and fears.

And get control of the media and education.

[underpants]

30. BBC's "The Century of Self"

Excellent watch on YouTube

[snot]

41. Exactly. That brilliantly-done, fact-packed doc. was a revelation for me.

(If any one hasn't seen it, DO.)

[Captain Stern]

23. I think it started when people stopped getting their news from the same sources.

Years ago, we all pretty much got our info about what was going on in the world from the same places. We all pretty much operated with the same set of facts. We then debated about what the facts meant, and which actions should be taken. The left and right were often 180 degrees apart on what should be done, but at least we were mostly on the same page about what the actual facts were.

Not so, today. Usually, if I try to discuss/debate something with a right-winger, we actually argue about what the facts are. Thanks to sources like fox news, most of them simply don't know what the fuck is going on.

[underpants]

31. Good observation.

Not only do we have Fox News (which they claim is both victim to the liberal media AND #1!) but what was the news follows them down every rabbit hole plus you have a seemingly endless supply of parasitic RW news sources (like I see linked on Facebook).

Googling anything often requires going to the 2nd or 3rd page to get through their flooding the Internet with nonsense about the same topic.

[HuckleB]

24. K&R!

[Cosmocat]

28. Affluence

the more affluent our lifestyle has become, the less serious our political discourse has become.

[The2ndWheel]

29. It's weird how the stupid side of the political sphere

is always the one that you yourself aren't on. The other side is always stupid, and every side says that about the other side. Each side saying that has this or that example to prove their opinion.

Nobody ever says "I'm on the stupid side", because you wouldn't choose to be on the stupid side. That would make you sort of stupid, but of course that can't be, because nobody wants to think that they're stupid.

Everyone is the hero in their own movie. The side that you've ended up being on, for whatever reasons, must be the side that fights for truth, justice, and the American way.

[melm00se]

33. Thank you!

You hit the point that I was mentally drafting as I was reading the OP and the source article.

There are folks on both sides of the great ideological divide who are "smart", "dumb" and everywhere in between.

[rock]

32. Short version

As the Republicans lost power and found it more and more difficult to maintain power they tried all sorts of shenanigans (of the unethical, immoral, fattening, or illegal varieties). Illegal means though effective are a bit dicey, and they really prefer the indirect techniques, such as raising a nation of sheep. There was no specific start, it just sort of coalesced form those many varietals of (as I like to call them) extra-curricular activities.

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

34. Some parents too

This story might be apocryphal, but I remember a news item from about ten years ago, where a wealthy school district in California got a huge influx of second generation Chinese and Indian students. They proceeded to blow the grading curve, and making getting good grades much more competitive than it had been before. How did the parents respond? Instead of encouraging their kids to study harder, they complained their precious dears were getting their feelings hurt and made to feel stupid by the high scoring Chinese and Indian-American kids.

How do you think those "precious dears" turned out later in life? Ugh.

[LanternWaste]

35. Effective commercial branding requires little thought, insight or reasoning.

Effective commercial branding requires little thought, insight or reasoning. And, as politics have become little more than branding, bumper stickers and 30-second slick TV spots, we rise only far enough above it to breath, but keep most of our desires and passions strictly submerged within that which may be reduced to a t-shirt slogan.

I'd be 'dumbing' myself far down into the realm of the cabal, the conspiracy and the crackpot if I attributed this to design.

[dmosh42]

36. I would recommend a viewing of "Where to invade next", a movie by Michael Moore. While we have......

been told "no, we can't" by everyone other than Bernie, and continue fighting wars for the world, look and see what our media doesn't show about how the backward Europeans are living. Yeah, I think we're pretty nwell dumbed down!

[dembotoz]

37. brown vs board of education

schools became the bad guys
went from our schools to those schools

[tabasco]

38. Plutocrats who wish to make a sham out of democracy (already accomplished)

and become de facto monarchs.

[milestogo]

39. Obama has done his part in dumbing down America's educational system.

Arne Duncan.

[Sunlei]

40. YOU did.