It seems to me, that when it comes to politics, especially for the current state of the GOP, ignorance isn’t a hindrance. Currently, Lauren Boebert, who dropped out of high school and kept flunking her GED tests, is a member of Congress. To me, this is a tragedy. But apparently her constituents in Colorado are perfectly fine with having a willfully ignorant moron representing them. Boebert is now in her second term in Congress.
Yes, the embrace of idiocy makes me want to throw things. And it turns out accepting stupidity in our politicians isn’t exactly a new thing for the GOP. It’s been going on for decades. And political satirist, Andy Borowitz, takes on this phenomenon is his book Profiles in Ignorance: How America’s Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber.
According to Borowitz there are three stages of ignorance-ridicule, acceptance, and finally, celebration.
In ridicule Borowitz discusses how an affable but dim B-list actor named Ronald Reagan because President for two terms, and how so many of his shitty policies are still having a negative impact on the United States today. Even Reagan’s speech writer called him a “barren terrain.” And remember when Dan Quayle misspelled potato? What did we do? We mocked and laughed, and thought things can’t get worse than Dan Quayle misspelling potato. But I digress.
The next stage is acceptance, where many people accepted good old boy President like George W. Bush even though he didn’t have much going on upstairs because he was the type of guy you could have a beer with. Why would we want an egghead who cares about the planet and shit like Al Gore? And who cares if Sarah Palin meandered through five different colleges and thought Africa was a country. She’s a folksy hockey mom, you betcha!
Now we’re at the most dangerous phase, the celebration phase of ignorance in politics. Our country barely survived the Trump as President, and now he’s the leading GOP candidate for the 2024 Presidential election. Several smooth brains who are also liars, uneducated, do-nothing howler monkeys like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and George Santos are in Congress. And even politicians who are relatively smart and highly-educated like Senator Ted Cruz and Governor of Florida and GOP Presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis are dumbing themselves down to appeal to voters. I don’t know about you, but I want my representatives in politics from President to my state Senator to be smart and to be willing to show it.
Of course, Republican politicians aren’t the only ones who act stupidly. Former mayor of Washington D.C., the late Marion Barry was caught smoking crack and it was filmed. And former president, Bill Clinton, had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, lied about, and got impeached. But for the most part, it’s the Republican party that has been acting like idiots and even reveling in it.
Is there hope for us who are disgusted by the embrace of idiocy in our political sphere? In the final chapter, “Conclusion: Democracy’s Braking System,” Borowitz gives us some ideas on how to fix this. Sure, we can vote, stay informed, and donate to various campaigns of candidates who aren’t mentally deficient. But Borowitz behooves the reader to get involved in the grass roots level of politics. And there are quite a few examples of how we can do this, which he lays out in book. And because so many of my readers are total braniacs, I’m sure they can figure out what they can do to insure the stupid people don’t totally screw things up…forever.
thebookselfblog 