How Stupid Do You Think We Are?

I know, the title of this rant is pretty stupid. The answer is clear, “Practically infinitely stupid.” Listening to Republicans explain why an insurrection was just an ordinary protest, “Free speech at its finest,” and their beloved uneducated minions chant versions of “Four legs are better than two” has about done me in. My opinion of human intelligence is at an all time low, especially the kind of humans I’m surrounded by in the rural Midwest.

Most recently, in response to my comment that Republicans are hustling this attack on abortion rights as a racist distraction driven, as always, by power and money, some relatives claimed “I have half-black grandchildren” or “my daughter-in-law is Hispanic, how can I be racist?” They are, of course, ignoring the fact that their grandchildren have been trying to educate them about the consequences of their politics for years. The core to this argument is, “I can personal act fairly morally and convince myself I am not racist while I consistently vote for racists, traitors, and authoritarians.”

The fact that they imagine no one sees through all of that is a pretty strong statement of how stupid they think we are. Of course, it only works in their own, narcistic minds, but that is their entire world. Between their religion, their guns, and their entitlement they are convinced that the rest of us are fools or worse. What they perceive as reality is so clouded in superstition and unexamined belief that any kind of actual science or even simple news report gets perverted into nonsense by their distorted filters. And the beat goes on. Or, and so it goes, depending on which commentary on how “nothing ever changes” you pick.

A lot of people who have studied history and who watch the curve of US politics and political opinion are warning us that this is a turning point; for good or evil. An entire political party and their cult followers are bent on destroying any semblance of democracy and replacing it with a freaking combination of theocracy and fascism. We are watching history repeat itself, again. One of the more entertaining reminders of the world’s horrific past is the perverted claim that fascists are not the problem; “the Nazis were socialists.” In name, that is true: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP; National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party). That workers’ political movement quickly turned into a coalition of fascists and conservative industrialists and the socialists left and created an actual socialist workers party; the anti-capitalist Schwarze Front (Black Front). In a similar manner, the fascists who have taken over the Republican Party are now calling the people who are traditional Republicans RINOs (Republican in name only). In 1934, Hitler ordered the murder of the founders of the Nazi Party and purged the party of anything resembling socialists. Just like Trump and his henchmen attempted to do on January 6, 2021.

If you are able to argue that the last 50 years of concentrated racism from the Republican Party is anything but that, you are an actor in the history the United States appears to be doomed to repeat.