Are Trump’s followers just stupid?

I found myself last week getting pretty depressed about the state of politics in the US.  Really?  More than half of the Republicans would prefer the next President to be either Trump or Carson?  Really? 

In one of my undergrad classes, I let slip that I was worried that the American public might just be getting more stupid.  Not a pedagogically sound statement, but I am worried about the possibility.  My apologies in advance for the harsh language, but I think it is important to use it to make the point.

Not polite to use this word

I know it isn’t polite, but let’s face it, some percentage of any population is not very smart.  Might this proportion be increasing?  I used to call this fear the “Dukes of Hazards” concern.  There was a time in TV history where the number one TV show was an inanity about two “country boys,” their ridiculous, gas guzzling car, and their scantily clad female cousin.  All of which had to be insulting to any self-respecting rural resident.  If that is what the American people most want to watch, something was seriously wrong.

Today, according to PPP, the polling company, 54% of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim, and another 32% said they weren’t sure.  Last year, Gallup found that more than 4 in every 10 Americans believe that God created the Earth in a week, in its present form and about 10,000 years ago.

The good news is that a majority of American’s believe in the necessity to act on climate change.  But according to HuffPo, more people believe Fox News’ views on climate change than believe President Obama’s.

We could go on.  I am guessing you all have your own data points that cause you incredulity.  There does seem to be evidence that the country is getting more and more stupid.

Maybe something else is going on

But today I retracted my statement in class.  I don’t think this is necessarily evidence of an increasing portion of Americans with limited critical thinking skills.  More likely, this is the result of 50 years of the right wing learning to reach out to, to incite and to activate whatever the portion of American’s that are stupid.

That is one of the main things they have been doing for the last many decades.  Opposing Medicare as the greatest threat to our freedom back in 1962.  Championing “state’s rights” (with all its racist overtones) in the mid-60's.  Promising peace with honor in Viet Nam, and then delivering neither.  Reagan promising to triple the defense budget, balance the federal budget and decrease taxes, all at the same time.  George H.W. Bush wanting us to address our pressing social needs with voluntarism.  George W. Bush and Cheney misleading us into the worst foreign policy blunder certainly in 100 years, maybe of all time.  Palin saying almost everything she has ever said.  Every rightist economist and politician telling us that the problem with our economy is taxes, “Taxes I tell you!”  Trump promising to round up 11 million people and send them “away.”

None of these are going to be attractive positions to people with critical thinking skills.  (OK, lots of really smart people bought W’s and Cheney’s malarkey.  The exception that proves the rule, I suppose.)  In a myriad ways, the right has been selling anger and frustration and hate to the not very smart, and it has worked well for them.

Trump might be their Frankenstein’s monster

But they are possibly going to rue that strategy.  Trump’s success is the peak of this decades-long campaign to activate the stupid.  He might end up being their Frankenstein’s monster.  His campaign is likely to dim the Republican brand, and if he were to win the nomination, he is very unlikely to win in the general election.  (Of course, I and many others said the same thing about Reagan in the summer of of 1980.  If Trump does become President, all bets are off, and I might go back to my original hypothesis.  Canada, maybe?)

So, my new hypothesis is that American’s aren’t getting any more stupid.  It is just that that group has been empowered by the right-wing in this country, been handed a platform and a megaphone, and we are just hearing from them more. 

Still, it is a dire set of events.  If right wing positions are based primarily on ignorance and lack of education, we can try to provide facts and instruction.  But if the leading edge is stupid, that is a much bigger problem. 

There is a tendency toward hopelessness faced with such a problem.  But we who are not stupid can’t give up, can’t allow ourselves to give in.  We still have to fight, and maintain hope that the large majority of the people who respond to facts and to rationality and to science can be organized to oppose a government that caters to the stupid. 

Stupidity is probably not growing, and is probably not insurmountable.  It is just another thing we have to overcome, along the way.