The Presidential election in America this month, was to me, incomprehensible. How is it that a majority of Americans, including many minorities, blacks and hispanics, voted for a man who is publicly, knowingly, a racist. They are voting for a man who uses immigrants, minorities, especially latinos and blacks, as political scapegoats in order to induce less educated, more religious and less politically astute Americans to vote for him, admittedly, most of them white.
But how is it that in the last ten years, the animosity towards those who aren’t Republicans, admittedly again, mostly from those right of Center politically, is so vehement, angry and dripping with something new to this era? What is it? Hate. It may well be that the world’s democracies are moving to the right, and nationalism, combined with tribalism is leading to isolationism. The concepts of ‘all for one and one for all’, has been replaced with ‘all for us’.
It may well have existed before Trump, but no one exploited it like Trump. No, he knew how to feed it and cater to it, couching every opportunity to move anger to hate. First, he had to create the lie, and then state the lie, over and over again. Remember, don’t let facts get in the way. We don’t want facts. Facts need to be destroyed. What we need are alternate facts. So, feed the ignorant raw meat. None of them will likely seek the facts – that might lead to an inconvenient truth. No, better to gain buy in, — besides we like the lie. It plays to our racist tendencies. If we say it loud enough and long enough, even those with doubts will get on board.
But the lie by itself won’t be enough. In order to give the lie wings we’ll need to maintain it. How do we do that? Easy, we give those who are angry a target. Immigrants! We hate losing our jobs to talented, educated people, so let’s end it. We don’t want qualified people. How will I compete? Competition sucks. So, No immigration, no Mexicans and Latinos. They may well be economic refugees but so what? We can turn them into criminals and rapists. There will always be one or two that actually might be the worst of them, – so we can put a spotlight on them, Right? Let’s face it, “They’re not bringing their best.”
Bruce Maiman wrote a piece in HUFFPOST, entitled “The Price America Pays for Ignorant Americans”, dated June, 6, 2024. In it he made a number of observations, based on opinion research focus groups from the firm Engagious provided by Richard Thau who conducted the focus groups. The groups were comprised of just six people per group, and not a sample of the electorate overall. The impressions they left, follow.
Thau’s thoughts were, “Do these people follow current events? Do they even understand the issues they’re being asked about?”
The host asked if some level of deception played a role in their responses. Thau observed, “If they’re being deceived, they don’t seem to realize they’re being deceived.”
Maiman stated, “You know the old saying: The first step to solving a problem is to realize you have a problem.” Well…
Thau stated, “I would say that they (the focus group’s members) are generally not paying close attention to what’s going on day-to-day politically.”
Maiman states, “That unawareness, either due to incuriousness, obliviousness or laziness, seems a microcosm of who we are today, a society that, as it moved forward, became dumber – OK, less informed.”
“A scary thought here is that those folks may not even know how unaware they are. Instead of willfully ignorant, a choice, they’re unwittingly ignorant—ignorant of their ignorance. Or, ignorance is bliss. And again, not necessarily because they are stupid.”
What Thau found in his focus group’s answers was classic invincible ignorance fallacy. That’s the fallacy of defending one’s position while refusing to consider immutable contradictory facts to the contrary. “I don’t care what the experts say, no one is going to convince me that I’m wrong. Sometimes it’s just fake news.”
Sound familiar?
Education is failing American children who become ignorant adults, especially so when politicians willfully use that ignorance and give ignorance equivalency to ‘facts’.
Susan Jacoby in her 2008 book “The Age of American Unreason,” noted a disturbing cultural shift in America: the belittling of intelligence. Maiman states; “We had a moment some 50 years ago when intellectualism and literacy were prized in American culture, when writers, artists and scientists were also genuine celebrities, fixtures on talk shows and in socialite columns, not only for what they wrote painted or theorized but because they were thinkers cultivated by a nation that aspired to intelligence.
Today, people are famous just for being famous or, in various stages of devolvement, for being untalented, obnoxious, clueless, naked or sexually ravaged, with television shows wholly dedicated to promoting it, and social media guaranteeing its permanence. Go on YouTube. Type, “Americans are stupid” in the search box, but if you laugh, be advised: Surveys repeatedly show that ignorance, willful or otherwise, is widespread in American history, civic and current events.”
Maiman goes on to say, “In a 2009 survey of 1,000 adults by the American Revolution Center, a nonpartisan educational group, 60% knew that reality TV’s Jon and Kate Gosselin had eight kids. But more than one-third didn’t know in which century the American Revolution had occurred, and half believed that either the War of 1812 or the Civil War preceded it.
Ninety percent of those survey participants said knowledge of the American Revolution and its principles is extremely important, yet 83% failed a basic test on knowledge of our founding, with an average score of 44%.”
And it hasn’t gotten any better. How could it? The leadership of the Republican Party celebrate ignorance. “I love the uneducated,” Trump yells at his rallies. And, since 2015, America’s uneducated have loved him too.
Hate and ignorance are powerful motivations to act out, to blame, to get even. Trump calls for retribution, and his mindless minions respond. “Yeah, retribution.” Vengeance, exacted by the American government is now planned. Trump has not only stated but voiced on every media outlet that he intends to use the military to find illegal immigrants, the undocumented and anyone too poor or weak to defend themselves against what will be tyranny.
It doesn’t matter if Trump lies anymore. The ignorant, uneducated, willfully or unwittingly ignorant will buy it, because deep down it’s satisfying to ‘do unto others’, isn’t it?
Besides, I can go to church on Sunday and be forgiven for being hateful, right? Sure…whatever Evangelicalism espouses. But better yet, let’s ban textbooks that don’t support science, evolution and intellectualism, Aspire to be inward looking, and hate the ‘others’, all the others.
To outsiders, it is patently obvious what is occurring in the U.S. , and we, don’t want any part of it. Hate and lies can spread like bacterium in democracies, simply because ‘free speech’ is a democratic belief. But unlike America, for example, hate speech is something that can be prosecuted in many other democracies, and rightly so.
You can ignore, but not escape ignorance . It will undermine democracy and lead to autocracy. But those who willfully destroy it should remember, — you will reap what you sow. When the ignorant realize they have been lied to, used and abused, they will be more than angry. When American factories are either shuttered or move overseas due to the high cost of labour, when tariffs increase the cost of almost every item by more than Trump’s tariffs on all imported goods, when unemployment leads to public anger and Trump has destroyed the safety net for seniors and the unemployed, and when the public realizes that the tax cuts disproportionately enrich the 1%, while average and low income people will be the ones who have to pay down the additional trillions in national debt, the whirlwind that follows will be fierce.
This doesn’t even begin to address how destroying the Justice Department, FEMA, the Department of Education, Homeland Security, the Military and so many other departments, particularly the sciences across the board and at every institution of higher learning, will affect climate change, the oceans, atmosphere, the biosphere and the whole of the natural world.
Ignorance is bliss, right?
The flames, once let loose to consume logic, reason, intelligence and empathy, will find a new focus, destroying dictatorship and autocracy.
Chaos and civil disobedience will occur, and much worse could follow.
But then, ignorance and lies is no big deal, right?
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