In 1994, when Forrest Gump famously observed, "stupid is as stupid does," no one expected that Forrest would become the poster boy of the Republican Party. Nonetheless, as an integral component of its "just say no" strategy, the GOP is steadily dumbing down the level of American political discourse. Meanwhile, the US is faced with numerous challenges that require our citizens to use their brains.

2009's Republican Party doesn't have ideas and doesn't appear to believe they need them. Rather than proposing an alternative to Obama's push for healthcare reform, they have made outrageous claims about the program - it will lead to euthanasia and support abortion on demand - and suggested that it's part of an organized push towards "socialism." Similarly, Republicans didn't propose an alternative to Obama's (successful) stimulus package but instead deplored "government bailouts." The Stimulus package passed the House without a single Republican vote, causing the normally conservative Financial Times to observe, "The more necessary public spending seems to be, the more strenuously Republicans oppose it. The party's political tactics are as hare-brained as its economics."

Traditionally, Republicans have played to dumb; now they're encouraging it. 58 percent of Republicans either think Obama wasn't born in the US or aren't sure. Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin have become the poster girls of the GOP. Fox news dominates TV news ratings and Rush Limbaugh rules the radio airwaves.

During the campaign, Barack Obama observed, "it's like these guys [Republicans] take pride in being ignorant." (Obama was responding to the GOP mocking his suggestion that Americans could increase their automobile miles per gallon by maintaining their tires at the correct pressure.) Obama's assumption was that Republicans were the victims of pernicious group mind; each day the GOP spin masters broadcast a new theme and the Republican faithful dutifully parroted the Party line, no matter how inane. Candidates McCain and Palin played their part knowing their outrageous scripts rallied the Republican faithful. Eventually Palin suggested that Obama had associated with terrorists, which generated images of the Democratic candidate as a jihadist and a flurry of death threats.

Over the course of the Presidential contest, the Republican credo degenerated to "whatever works." And, the GOP leaders discovered that stupid worked as effectively as fear - in fact, they complemented each other.

Deliberately dumbing down the message works well with the Republican base because, compared to average Americans, the GOP rank-and-file tend to be poorly educated and dogmatically Christian, living in a culture that is hierarchical and rules based. They seldom read books or newspapers - although many read the Bible - and get their news from conservative talks shows or Fox News. Republican voters don't lack intelligence but rather they don't have a tradition of thinking for themselves. Although they come from a culture that has been dumbed down, they don't recognize it because everyone around them acts the same way, shares the same worldview, and believes the same proverbs: "George Bush was a good President because he kept us safe." Stupid is as stupid does.

After all, it's only a small step from believing that God created the world in seven days to accepting the assertion that healthcare reform will lead to socialism. If a true believer has faith that the Bible is literally true then they can also trust Rush Limbaugh. If they believe the Rapture is imminent then they can ignore warnings about global climate change or the proliferation of nuclear weapons. If a trusted leader tells them that Obama is the Antichrist then they can comfortably oppose everything the President proposes, even go so far as to threaten his life.

US history informs us that there has always been a strong anti-intellectual component in American culture. And it's common for radical conservative movements to get their strongest support from the white, rural, Christian south. What's unusual about the GOP "dumbing of America" campaign is that it has become a national strategy,

There are two serious problems with the Republican game plan of celebrating stupidity. It is anti-American because it defiles our treasured myth of the triumphant individual. "Dumb is beautiful" runs counter to the American ethos of self-sufficiency, of taking pride in a culture of individuals that stand on their own two feet, and think for themselves. Ultimately, it replaces the individual with the mob.

The other problem with the Republican strategy is that it is counter productive. America is beset by terrible problems: a staggering economy, a war against terrorists, the threat of global climate change, and diminishing energy supplies, to name only a few. To survive in an increasingly difficult world, the US must tap the intelligence of all of our citizens. We need to challenge ourselves to function at a higher level and not be satisfied with sappy slogans and emotional formulas. This is the time for Americans to question authority not pay obeisance to it.
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About author
Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer, activist, and Quaker. Before starting a second career as a journalist, he was a technologist and one of the founding executives at Cisco Systems. Bob can be reached at boburnett@comcast.net.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24405

"After all, it's only a small step from believing that God created the world in seven days to accepting the assertion that healthcare reform will lead to socialism."

Apparently the author is not versed in free market econ or rhetoric. Otherwise he would know that 1) the real issue at hand is government takeover of industry, not "healthcare reform" 2) any government intervention in a free market (such as Obamacare) which uses money from one person/group to subsidize another can be rightly labeled "socialism", though many people in the current media misuse the word.

Hayek's Nobel-winning "The Road to Serfdom" goes into more detail on this.

a shame i have to come here to debate real topics with real people on real issues and so many posts are nothing but copy/paste articles. the author is never here to answer my challenges and i have a pretty souped up search engine too if i want a search engine drag race to see who can out copy/paste who. must so many form and express their opinions with such media help?

You ought to try living in Ann Arbor, MI (home to the University of Michigan...yuck, P.U.)... I refer to it as "Little San Francisco"... but... you can never get lost here... there are A.I.D.S. on every corner...

Some of them (especially the ones that I post) contain useful insights and info not normally available from the MSM. Others are rather useless, as they can already be found everywhere in media.

Yeah, the author is a far leftist from Berkeley who probably doesn't know a real conservative. Most of the article is building strawman and burning it. Boring as hell.

you'll get used to it

it's all he ever does

Don't forget 'UPTIGHT OLD MEN'. Must be very difficult living in a modern world for some.

I do have to say that the republicans I know are book smart so they have intelligence. They appear to be less the common sense type wisdom. Maybe that comes from the blind faith they have to be able to apply to their lives to believe in their religion as implecated in the article or maybe not.

If one is capable of blind faith in a religion, can that be transfered to other areas of their life? Should blind faith be applied to any part of our lives? Is it dangerous for us?

My issue with Republicans is they believe their way is right for all and they want to dictate to the country how it should live under their morals and personal preferences. Freedom for all is either freedom for ALL or it isn't.

I have a problem categorizing stupid people. I can't put them under directly one political party, that's for sure.

I don't like calling any human stupid at any time. I consider it a type of prejudice.

But even Einstein talked about it. I'm sure he knew it even better than me.

Einstein came from a time gone by before prejudice and it's ill effects was really known. Our ancestors were as evolved as they could be considering the knowledge available. Even Einstein was limited by this.

So hold on now, you are saying that somehow Einstein would be "behind" today?

IQ is not measured by technology or advancements or era. For example, an average greek philosopher 2000 years ago was probably a lot smarter than any of the politicians you'd find today in the Congress.
Just because he doesn't happened to know how to turn a microwave on or drive a car, does not make him less intelligent or something that should not be considered because "he lived in an era", that isn't like today's world.

The knowledge of past times was less than today in general. Not saying all utilize it, of course. But yes, intellect of today would be more socially advanced than times gone by, for sure. But at other levels as well.

I dont think any one particular party has a monopoly on ignorance. I understand OBamas statement though about people who want to tear down any mention of anything positive and drown it out with despair and negativity instead.

Knowledge of what? Just because we know how to make microchips does not make us any smarter than previous generations. Sure, more technologically advanced, but not intellectually and neither socially, that's for sure.

How do you know if history is not repeating itself in a cycle? builds-builds- enlightening- destruction - dark ages- enlightening- building-modernization- destruction - dark ages.... and on and on.

We still can't build pyramids or , hell not even a stonehenge not even with our modern cranes and construction vehicles available. We can build metal wood, plastic structures? yeah sure..but would they last? No, give it a tornado or a bad storm and it's gone in a day.
While we are surprised and looking the stone buildings lasting 4-5000 years.

by the way..I'm way off topic. Sorry.

We are smarter than we were back then. Whether we use it or not is up to us but we have more knowledge available to us today and will have more still tomorrow.

WE are? Did you know that an average Roman was able to calculate mathematical equation with 2 unknown numbers without any calculators available?

Calculus was known by the Egyptians 2000 years ago and used in engineering and astronomical studies? Half of the kids today doesn't even know what the word is, let alone reaching that level in mathematics.

Did you know that the Greeks invented "democracy" ?
Or the romans did "republic"?
Copernicus proved that the Earth is not the center of the universe, with a telescope no better than the ones you can buy for 40 bucks, in the Discovery Store in the Mall?

Did you know, that there was no indications whatsoever that racism existed in the roman empire or the greek times?
Hmm?

care to refute him ???