We're "stupid", Part II

Why Americans Hate Democrats-A Dialogue: The unteachable ignorance of the red states.

By Jane Smiley

...

I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush, so I am going to be the one to say it: The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not
...

The reason the Democrats have lost five of the last seven presidential elections is simple: A generation ago, the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey-workers and consumers. The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now-Cheney is the capitalist arm and Bush is the religious arm. They know no boundaries or rules. They are predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant. Lots of Americans like and admire them because lots of Americans, even those who don't share those same qualities, don't know which end is up. Can the Democrats appeal to such voters? Do they want to? The Republicans have sold their souls for power. Must everyone?

...
-more-

There's something deliciously ironic about being considered "stupid" by people whose grasp of economics is bested by any five year old who's run a lemonade stand; who, unlike that same five year old on the playground, don't understand that there are mean people out there that you have to slug before they slug you; the people who believe porn is healthy and constitutes "speech", that can't figure out that life begins at conception, that boinking everything that moves is a bad way to live and that children need a mother AND a father ... the people who scoff at the concept of a "soul" and can thus equate a rat to a plant to a boy; the very same people who believe Heaven can be created on Earth ... these people think WE'RE stupid?

Awesome.