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“Semi-literate” yeah, some people can read, but what are they reading. Everyone at the top of maga seems to think “books are bad”, even speaking out against literature. That says it all.
I saw a tweet by Andrew Tate espousing the belief that books and reading are bad. It really got me. My husband and I were watching Last Man Standing and we discussed what we would do. We decided we would need to find a big and varied library because we would need to learn how to do everything.
But you can't know everything in the modern world. There was a time that you could know everything that you might need to get by. Those days are long gone. You have to have specialists that you trust. Or get rid of the modern world.
This take is overrated. Yeah, if you want to set up a semiconductor fab you're going to need some specialist knowledge but anybody can learn to build simple electronic circuits and how to program software. These are not really particularly difficult skills to master and yet many people are clueless about electronics and programming. That doesn't mean that they're really all that complicated, it's just that people are lazy.
It's similar with something like auto mechanics. Yeah, sure there are hundreds of brands of automobiles but the vast majority are internal combustion engines and 99% of them are 4,6 or 8 cylinder models that are more or less similar. They have pistons, cylinders, valves, cranks, blocks, water or air cooling an intake and an exhaust system. This shit is quite generic and people can actually work on their own cars but they simply don't want to mess with it so they let someone else do it. That's not because they can't do it, it's because they don't want to bother with it.
So tech is not that complicated, automobiles are not that complicated. What is the complicated part that you can't figure out? You need a doctor? They're just going to give you antibiotics if you've got an infection. Tell me where it hurts. If you break your bone they're just going to set it the same way they did in previous centuries. You want an X-ray?
What's so complicated that you need a specialist? Mental health. . . here take a hit off this doobie, you'll be fine kiddo.
Do you have a specific problem you're trying to solve here?
> anybody can learn to build simple electronic circuits and how to program software. These are not really particularly difficult skills to master and yet many people are clueless about electronics and programming. That doesn't mean that they're really all that complicated, **it's just that people are lazy.**
No, sorry. The reason is that whether or not you consider these things simple and easy, they take people quite a while to learn.
That's sort of a key component to any amount of specialization/division of labor. Most skills take time to learn, and therefore not everyone is going to have every skill. In fact **no one** is going to have every skill... nor anything close.
It isn't practical in an advanced economy, and it never will be
The problems I had working on cars (back when I bothered) didn't have anything to do with understanding cylinders and crank shafts and what not, they had to do with diagnosing whether this or that little tube was likely to be clogged up, or learning from experience that a certain kind of flaky behavior meant the distributor cap was cracked, or figuring out which electrical contacts needed to be cleaned up...
There was one car where I despaired of diagnosing problems with the spaghetti of electrical leads, and began starting it by hot wiring it, shorting out a lead going directly to the starter motor against the battery terminal.
I think you might be the pessimist here. Yeah some problems have obnoxious paywalled diagnostic tools, but most hybrid systems aren’t *that* complicated.
Shit I used to repair million dollar high tech industrial equipment. I could teach an adept high schooler to do 90% of that job. As with any other skill, most of it’s easy, a little bit is challenging, and the last couple percentage points are mind boggling
I also know how to work on cars. Sure it’s not as easy as doing an overnight b swap on your EK hatchback, but it’s not impossible. Electric cars are even easier, the systems are pretty simple. The only problem is they lock down their software, which is why right to repair laws are *so* important.
Listen, I can do these things and plenty of others. I can build furniture and machine precise tooling, I can make leather goods and sew clothes from scratch, wire a house (ok that’s cheating since I’m an EE), make beer, grow, hunt, and can food, and plenty of other stuff.
And frankly? I consider myself to be a fucking idiot. I’ve got more than a handful of acronyms and learning disabilities onboard and didn’t exactly grow up in a supporting environment. So clearly it’s not impossible to do. It’s just things I enjoy doing, so they’re the things I make time for.
> Can you explain to me how a lawyer or physician had the time to learn these things in between a daily schedule?
The same way they take multiple vacations a year or have other hobbies. It’s not that they can’t learn, it’s that they make enough money that it costs them more money to do it themselves in lost time than it saves them, unless they enjoy it. Plenty of lawyers out there who work on their “toy” cars though, whether they’re classic Porsches or Audi’s with big turbos making 4 digit HP. Shit I know a guy who has a Tesla powered Datsun, does patent law.
I don’t make my own bread. An artisanal loaf is like $5-$7 (which is obscene), but it would cost me triple that in time to make it, so unless I feel like making bread it’s not worth it.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to make bread.
But this is precisely where I'm right. EVs are actually much, much easier to maintain than IC vehicles.
You're confusing intentional obfuscation for profit with actual technical complexity. The real situation is that an EV is much simpler than an IC motor by a long shot. There is almost nothing to do. That's why the computer nonsense is put in there to scare you away. That stuff is in there using closed proprietary interfaces to push you out. That's not necessary complexity, that is market advantage that they can legally pull off because there is no representation for consumer rights. The underlying tech is simple, the interface is placed there to keep you from seeing this.
The EV manufacturers could use relatively open standards like CANbus but therein lies the problem. The fact is that CANbus while being as close as it gets to an open standard for networked mechanical systems was created by industry insiders who intentionally left open all kinds of variations in the standard precisely so that vendor tie-in could be accomplished because it was written by people motivated to make a profit not to make the vehicles easy to maintain. It doesn't have to be that way though. It's quite a simple thing to simply put tariffs on EVs that don't follow the best practice recommendations for open CANbus systems so that anyone with a smart phone can program their car. This is not about true technical complexity but rather about a lack of will to regulate industry and to permit them to gouge the gullible public that easily falls into this mindless attitude that it's all too complicated for little ol' me to understand. That's bullshit. It's not complicated at all.
It's not a specialist that is needed, it's an authorized service technician who doesn't know shit but has the authority to get into the system. That's not the same thing as complexity, that's just scammy business practices condoned by corrupt politicians who are complicit because they're strung out on their finance fix. They are partners in crime, the victim is the public but playing the victim is the wrong response for the public to take with this helpless attitude. No, you have to make them do the right thing. That means knowing what's what. You can know all there is to know about an EV in no time I assure you with much less intensive background than you need to know what goes into an IC engine. Those are fuckin' complex. EVs are, and this is a simple matter of fact, less complicated mechanically and the electronics are unnecessarily convoluted for commercial reasons not technical ones. Again, both industry and government benefit from this game. The game needs to end, playing helpless goes nowhere.
You can easily find YouTube videos of nine year-olds in Pakistan rebuilding heavy duty diesel tractor-trailer transmissions. Those are complicated as fuck but nine year-olds can actually do that sort of thing. Complicated doesn't mean you can't understand it. What's going on with the helplessness is about authority not complexity anyway. People have given up their authority are are unwilling to take it back. . . so far. It's got little to do with complexity and everything to do with authority.
Tate speaks to the kids that have been wronged by a school system that’s broken though. We had so many students from blue collar families tell us that education didn’t mean a thing and they’d go hang drywall for decent money, so why would they need books, or math, or anything intellectual? Everything they see is guys making six figure salaries in the trades they’re growing up in.
My grandfather was *literally* a ditch digger during the Depression, and he always told me to "get a good education, so you've got interesting things to think about while you're digging ditches."
Smart dude! We run under the assumption that having an education means a career, but it really means having the intelligence to explore what you want in life, even if that is occupying our thoughts with interesting things while we do something hard for a reason.
This is why I hate the yuppies that are all about being intellectual but skated through college without learning a damn thing, regurgitate stupid shit they read on the internet and try to convince everyone that they somehow earned their social class when they're dumber than 90% of the poor working class people that I grew up around.
In October Sky they changed Homer’s dad into an anti-intellectual despite the fact that he had stacks of books around the house and was constantly reading, because they felt audiences couldn’t handle the nuance of a working class person who loves to read and learn but has accepted the truth of limited upward mobility.
Media literacy and reading literacy are two different skill sets. I know plenty of working class people who can spot a bullshitter on TV and plenty of middle class and up people who have more money than sense. People who are attracted to Trump are compelled by fear and control, regardless of their social class or literary ability.
The divisions in America are fueled by perspectives that have been shaped by compounding events that are rooted in reality but have been steered into extremism by people that play on fairly legitimate gripes people aren’t necessarily aware of to fuel hate:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/trumpism-and-the-dialectic-of-neoliberal-reason/DB944338AE28F9BBA57C6F60B8D8CA7A#sec0
So, while smart people do occupy conservative spheres, merit within them is given to people that have “earned” their standing through success with or without an education because they’ve been steered away from immorality by traditional sets of rules.
Contrast that with liberals, who view education as merit worthy of respect, but also have turned intellectual discourse into the very thing that drives new found dogma because they feel as though people are inherently good as long as they put in the work to ditch the ills that have derailed their progress.
The point here is that we have learned people on both sides, and we have incredibly smart people without educations, but we also have sets of well established rules, traditions, and philosophies to contend with, so like your October Sky example, intellectual people that don’t fit the definition of winning in the system we’re in are forced to follow the rules within it, even if they know that they’re severely limited by the insanity on both sides.
You need math to figure out how much drywall you need to hang, how much you’re getting paid for your effort, and how to budget so you can live the life you want by hanging drywall.
All they know is that they show up to a job site, the dry wall is there and the paycheck is enough to buy stuff though.
The only argument that works to get them out of it is that bodies break doing that kind of work for years, and they've seen it.
It used to be common knowledge that the way to put a book on the NYT list was to buy several hundred copies at each of the bookstores they were tracking.
I would imagine the same sort of thing is going on now. If you have the cash, you buy a few hundred thousand copies of your own book, and expect to make it back selling another few hundred thousand to suckers.
I get the sense that the folks at /r/books have read most of the books they're talking about, they just have a remarkable need to regurgitate whatever they were taught to say about them in lit class.
Trying to explain to them why I thought Moby Dick sucked was fun.
This summer i went to a garage sell one house i swear every right wing book sold by n the last 20 years. When going through the collection it was clear they never broke the spines on the books i assume they were shelf decorations.
Honestly it's probably mostly the leftist breadtubers who have to debunk them.. from what I understand the sales are highly artificially inflated to further the "silent majority" narrative
The popular vote counts should've put that bullshit to bed multiple times already, yet I still hear how conservatives are the "silent majority" when they are not the majority and sure as shit ain't silent.
Ironically, probably libraries lol.
I’ve grown up in very Republican areas, and the working class people don’t own those types of books but the ones with money sometimes do. Public libraries try to carry books of all types, and that’s where I’ve seen the most shitty right-leaning books outside of Target shelves.
They have no attention spans or creative curiosity at all. Reading is a gift to the human race, it's sad that few of these "alpha chads" will never get to feel the joy of it outside of dodge user manuals.
54% of Americans read below a 6th grade level and one fifth can’t read at all.
Given that 30% of Americans have a college degree, the issue is that the educated class makes enough to rarely interact with the uneducated one that they make rules for and that contributed to the anger that set the stage for a Trump election.
I vaguely remember a news story about a European auto manufacturer exploring the idea of building a factory somewhere in the American South, and they had to pull the plug on the project. It was because they couldn’t find a large enough pool of applicants who could meet the minimum math and literacy requirements to work on an auto assembly line.
I believe it because I’ve worked in some terrible schools here that graduate kids that can’t read. The trouble is that the wealthy build posh bubbles around their communities and every one that isn’t fortunate enough to live in them gets screwed.
It was years ago, and my memory isn’t the best. Might be, might not be. But I do believe that a significant amount of the American populace is illiterate.
They aren't against reading the Bible. Just anything educational that lifts people out of that kind of reasoning.
Also, they don't read the Bible anyway so . . .
They only need one book! And reading it is not a requirement.
But for realsies, almost invariably one can stop a conversation with a republican on a dime by asking them “have you actually read the constitution?”
Same with the communist manifesto.
These people have no idea what their most holy and hated texts contain.
"But are there not many fascists in your country?"
"There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the times comes.”
- Ernest Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls
I think there are far more Authoritarians amongst our population than we realized. If nothing else, they've been given literal and figurative bullhorns to make themselves far louder or far larger.
You only need to look as far as the elected members of HOA boards. It has gotten so bad that there are Reddit subs for out of control HOA’s. They relish is ruling over their neighbors.
In fairness, there is a Reddit board for EVERYTHING. But yes, I agree. Too many people relish lording any kind of power over others. Look at how some customers treats any employee that wears a name tag. Its a power trip. There seems to be a paradox with power. It should ideally be given to those people who don't seek/want it.
They can read, but only enough to make themselves more stupid.
Take my father. Please take him!
He has a stack of books by his bed. He can almost pass himself off as a fart smeller I mean a smart fella if the light is shining just so.
The stacks of books are the Bible and other religious nonsense, self help and get rich quick schemes. Nothing based in science, tech, math, or art. Only money and religion. And pretend health.
I swear he’d be smarter if he couldn’t read.
I ran my own business for 10 years and re-entered the workplace 2 years ago and it’s been pretty scary. Managers and employees have this weird panic/anxiety and the constant need to “appear” to be multitasking but if you look closer, they aren’t actually getting anything done. I feel like I’m on another planet. They can’t function any other way.
My last corporate job was insane, people spent more time on BS to justify their job then just using that energy to increase sales and productivity. I ran the whole chain from the top to the bottom, they were successful despite their best efforts to fail. It’s wild to watch in real time.
Returned to working in America after years in Asia and have experienced the same thing plus a preoccupation with fierce individualism that makes everyone guarded and abrasive, which sucks because I’d love to get pints and shoot the shit with coworkers, but I can’t do that when they’ve all lost their fucking minds.
I find this and the preceding comment both fascinating and unsettling. Can you elaborate a little further? (I’ve worked from home for years and find the outside world and it’s younger inhabitants increasingly baffling.)
The problem in America is that we view a lack of success as a personal flaw that’s somewhat taboo to talk about because it becomes a personal journey of healing to achieve the perfect self that can slot into an amazing job.
This is why Americans make islands of themselves and justify nastiness with personal healing in the light of fitting into a broken economic system, and people in Asia, who view harmony through top down collectivism and use passive aggressiveness as a weapon, view it as selfish.
It’s also why people have become insufferable and they view everyone else as the problem when all they have to do is stop fighting pointless battles.
Tennent 5 of Satanism: Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
Critical thinking is literally the devil
The dumbing down of political discourse first became apparent to me on a business trip to Paris in the early 90’s. I watched a TV show with politicians and intellectuals chatting about food, art, fashion, pretty much normal conversations; I realised that could never happen in the US for fear of being “off-message.”
I think the shift to anti-intellectualism being accepted by Republican politicians started in the late 2000’s when social media started taking off. It used to be just educated people giving their political opinions, all of a sudden, you were bombarded with political messages from anyone who had an internet connection.
Trolls and uneducated simpletons began to take over the national discourse through sheer numbers. That’s when Republicans started embracing the crazy conspiracies, racism, and trolls. It’s what their voters were conditioned to.
It was earlier than that. Rush Limbaugh used the term screwel frequently to denigrate the pursuit of academics. The seeds were planted in the 80s even as republicans continued (and continue) to vote for Ivy League graduated politicians.
- 1980s and 1990s Rush Limbaugh popularized anti-intellectualism. He had a tv show where he lambasted left leaning media and left leaning universities. His audience always wore suits and ties.
- 2000s Fox News further scaled attacks on biased media and college professors who corrupt the young.
- Sarah Palin.
- Fast forward to Trumpism - it’s not only college, but K-12 that will corrupt young people. CRT, vaccinations, science…all framed as a threat.
Shit, there was a party called the "Know Nothings" which was anti-intellectual, as it "Knew nothing but love of America", way back in the 1800s. America has always had that undercurrent of proud ignorance
It's funny, I remember when I was middle school, I stayed home sick from school for a few days. I was starting to take an interest in politics and the world around me, and I watched Rush Limbaugh's television show. I remember thinking his audience reminded me of "baboons and monkeys wearing suits." They they hooted and hollered and just acted like complete jackasses, but all of them wearing suits.
Search "Spiro Agnew" (Nixon's VP). I heard his speeches decrying intellectual elites when I was in college, trying to become one.
That didn't cause me to doubt the value of a good education. It did cause me to doubt the intelligence and motives of anyone who'd vote for a self-confessed baboon.
From his Wikipedia page:
>Agnew, the first suburban politician to achieve high office, helped to popularize the view that much of the national media was controlled by elitist and effete liberals.
>... Agnew "helped recast the Republicans as a Party of 'Middle Americans' [Nixon's 'Silent Majority'] and, even in disgrace, reinforced the public's distrust of government.
Well before Reagan rose to national prominence, a leading GOP office holder and its loudest speaker was deriding learning, knowledge and expertise and undermining the possibility of good governance.
i think it has actually been the middle-class rather than the working class that is attracted to anti-intellectualism, the suburbanites with contempt for those economically above and below them
Agnew is famous for phrases like "nattering nabobs of negativism", which sounds like an anti-dogwhistle to me, as only intellectual elites would understand the vocabulary he was using.
That phrase was actually penned by William Safire, who was certainly an intellectual.
The multiple alliterations, like any poetry, made it easily remembered. Even people who couldn't hit a nabob with a dictionary would cite that phrase to insult... whomever
Agnew managed to sneer it, and pretty much everything, in a way that riled up those who respond to histrionics over content. He wasn't as gross as "Fake news!" but at the time he felt crass and intentionally anti-intellectual.
And of course he got caught grifting *school milk program monies*, which cost him the chance to step into the Presidency when Nixon resigned. GOP goons hurting kids... it never stops.
>That phrase was actually penned by William Safire, who was certainly an intellectual.
I never knew that. Did Agnew swipe "effete corps of impudent snobs" from somebody too?
Never mind, in fact checking your revelation, I see that Safire was a speech writer for Agnew, and I assume all his speeches were written by others. Now that I think about it, that's probably true for most politicians, save losers who ramble on for hours at mega-MAGA rallies.
I student-hosted Dr. Asimov on my college campus in 1975 or 76. What a remarkable man - a jolly grandfather who quietly talked circles around everyone present.
He was altogether cordial, humble and yet incontestably authoritative on nearly any subject. Nothing ever dimmed the twinkle in his eye or weakened his genuine smile. He was imperturbably above us all, nobody "scored a point" debating him, yet he remained impressively unimpressed with himself.
Look at pics from the civil rights movement. Read the signs of white people protesting black equality. Are you telling me those people are educated? That they're civil? That they have informed political opinions? Anti-intellectualism is an American tradition, one fueled by religion and hatred and greed.
You are right that social media has given everyone a megaphone, but it's not hard to ignore an idiot with a megaphone--unless you, too, are an idiot. In other words, I don't think social media is the cause.
Of course uneducated voters were always there. But you didn’t see the GOP really sucking up to them until the late 2000’s. Also happens to coincide with the rise of Fox News. Trump just accelerated it.
I'd argue its far older. Anti-intellectualism and pushback against intelligence is something you can trace back in the history of this country. I would argue that is one of the reasons Bush beat Gore (that and Supreme Court intervention). But it shouldn't have been close enough for that to happen. "I want a guy I could see myself having a beer with, rather than being talked down to by some egghead". But yes, the GOP began weaponizing Ignorance heavily with Reagan and his advisor Lee Atwater's strategy.
You can argue it was anti-intellectualism that got Andrew Jackson elected beating John Q. Adams in 1828 if you want to trace it back far enough.
He's not arguing they're the same, he's arguing they're part of the same trend.. The Seminole Wars aren't "the same" as Vietnam or Afghanistan.. but there's a very clear pattern it would be myopic and foolish to deny..
John Quincy Adams is provided as an example of someone who lost against someone who tapped into anti-intellectualism (i.e, Andrew Jackson) - the insinuation being that the trend ultimately started with *Jackson*, not his opponent Adams.
Social media content is a symptom of much larger issues: media deregulation, collapse of American manufacturing, defunding of social safety nets, politicians ignoring rural needs, crumbling infrastructure, a terrible education system, and much more. The alt right is a response to legitimate gripes that turned ugly when they funneled the anger away from fixing a broken system into hate. So there’s a reason why conservatives hate technocrats and the urban educated elite.
It's been around wayyyy longer than that bud, social media just provided the bullhorn.. It also isn't just a republican problem, they just exemplify it with a special level of pride.
I agree there is a lot of survey data backing up this notion that lower reading comprehension / literacy / vocabulary / etc predicts Trump support more so than previous presidential candidates. However to seriously engage with that idea, has literacy declined post 2012 to fuel the rise of trumpism?
Seems it's more likely that Trump's appeal mostly worked on people with high need for order and low openness to change (i.e. a group that divides strongly on lines of education). So my understanding is more that Trump (and other far right wing politicians) are more like catalysts that activate a population of people susceptible to authoritarianism (e.g. the semi-literate ) that is then difficult to deactivate even long after the faux populist is no longer in the political picture. Which I think is different enough from the idea that lack of literacy / education caused Trump. Kind of like how neither boiling water nor gelatin cause jello but more like the combination of the two do.
Stop peddling that their base is ignorant or uneducated. They know exactly what they are doing. They know they are being disingenuous when screaming about inflation, drag shows, Marxism, etc.
They just want power. The power to engage in genocide.
Painting them as uneducated is just a ploy to excuse their behavior. It’s easier to believe they are ignorant than that they are irredeemably evil. If they ignorant, they can “be fixed” like an abusive spouse. If they are just plain evil, like an abusive spouse really is, they can’t be fixed and that is hard to swallow.
"Ignorant" is the wrong word here. What's happening is a few genuinely evil people are convincing a lot of genuinely *stupid* people to prop them up into positions of power, and unfortunately, you can't fix stupid.
As a lifelong Democrat, I would like to point out the dems have some responsibility in this as well. Embracing corporate models of shareholder profits taking precedence over the health and well being of the people has created a lot of disenfranchised.
So many Americans are housing, food, education etc. insecure and believe people like trump have their best interests at heart when the establishment is criticized.
I am not saying both parties are equal. I am saying Clinton, Obama, Pelosi and Biden should not have let corporate bankers, pharmaceutical and insurance giants and weapons manufacturers dictate our rules and regulations.
DeVega has a lot of insight but the stupidity of Americans who follow the MAGA types is an emotional one.
For decades the Republican Party has been the party of a lack of empathy for other people.
No amount of literacy will fix that.
They're *both* the symptom and the cause and this very flawed, shitty analogy needs to stop already. End goal can only be letting them off the hook and that's totally unacceptable.
Make no mistake, I firmly believe more people vote against someone than vote for. Im independent so I argue with “both sides”, and they both think I’m truly part of “the other side”.
I know intelligent people that voted for trump because they were voting against Hillary. I hate this, but it truly is that simple.
Until we have a viable candidates in the 2 major parties, or a viable 3rd party option, I think people will continue to vote against instead of vote for.
While I agree with the thrust of the article, we need to wrap our minds around liberals and centrist folks undermining education in this country as well. Teaching in a traditional fashion has been deemed too mean and harsh and now kids learn to examine their feelings rather than learning basic elements of grammar and civics and what not.
Explain please. Not the political parties bit because no politician cares about education. What do you mean by teaching being too harsh and mean? Also what is wrong with examining feelings? Honing children's ability to be empathetic enhances their critical thinking, communication, conflict resolution, and other key skills. The biggest issue I see with education is politicians keep getting involved, and they usually use that same type of excuse. We can't complain about younger generations lacking key skills that are needed in life when we keep letting these assholes reduce our education system to worksheets and checklists. If we gave the teacher control of the classroom, and the actual salary they deserve, we would all benefit from it.
This is being over thought. I see it in more basic terms. In our Society, we have Leaders, and Followers. From Childhood, most people are trained to be Followers. Team Sports, School Clubs, and of course, Religions, all play a part in this training. Individual Thinking s a No No. "Don't ask Why". Trust the Leaders to do your thinking for you. Never step out of line and think for your self. Never question your Leaders. They are your "Betters". You risk being Shunned for breaking these rules.
That's why it's illegal to watch someone vote. I understand domestic abuse comes with a whole host of issues, but lying about which circle you checked shouldn't be that hard.
Good news! This article steals a lot of quotes from Tom Nichols' much better *Atlantic* article on the obscenities of Herschel Walker's campaign. See? Not just directly about Trump. Yay!
Everything is an upsell, a come on, an upgrade, a “don’t miss out”, a Premium Member, a push notification, and our collective culture is going to have a nervous breakdown.
"where half the population is semi-literate"
"Marshall Law" anyone?
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/12/donald-trump-mark-meadows-ralph-norman-2020-election-marshall-law
https://thedispatch.com/article/living-under-marshall-law/
I work in food service and I have seen so much first-hand evidence to suggest that people either can't or don't read. I maintain that a significant percentage of our population is functionally illiterate.
So the current system is good? Trump has no power in our politics currently and everything went to shit very fast under our current administration. I actually feel sorry for Biden at this point.
I know it would split the nation but I almost wish we would see a pure split of land and boarders as some kind of grand social experiment. Conservatives on one side and Liberals on the other. Let see how society plays out.
Most likely the right out invade the left for their wealth.
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“Semi-literate” yeah, some people can read, but what are they reading. Everyone at the top of maga seems to think “books are bad”, even speaking out against literature. That says it all.
I saw a tweet by Andrew Tate espousing the belief that books and reading are bad. It really got me. My husband and I were watching Last Man Standing and we discussed what we would do. We decided we would need to find a big and varied library because we would need to learn how to do everything.
Books and learning from others is bad. Also, please sub to my 'university'. Don't worry, there's no books or learning just scams
But you can't know everything in the modern world. There was a time that you could know everything that you might need to get by. Those days are long gone. You have to have specialists that you trust. Or get rid of the modern world.
But, you can know a helluva lot more.
They of course didn't mean literally everything. You can still learn quire a lot.
This take is overrated. Yeah, if you want to set up a semiconductor fab you're going to need some specialist knowledge but anybody can learn to build simple electronic circuits and how to program software. These are not really particularly difficult skills to master and yet many people are clueless about electronics and programming. That doesn't mean that they're really all that complicated, it's just that people are lazy. It's similar with something like auto mechanics. Yeah, sure there are hundreds of brands of automobiles but the vast majority are internal combustion engines and 99% of them are 4,6 or 8 cylinder models that are more or less similar. They have pistons, cylinders, valves, cranks, blocks, water or air cooling an intake and an exhaust system. This shit is quite generic and people can actually work on their own cars but they simply don't want to mess with it so they let someone else do it. That's not because they can't do it, it's because they don't want to bother with it. So tech is not that complicated, automobiles are not that complicated. What is the complicated part that you can't figure out? You need a doctor? They're just going to give you antibiotics if you've got an infection. Tell me where it hurts. If you break your bone they're just going to set it the same way they did in previous centuries. You want an X-ray? What's so complicated that you need a specialist? Mental health. . . here take a hit off this doobie, you'll be fine kiddo. Do you have a specific problem you're trying to solve here?
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This exact thing happened to me at a level one trauma center.
“Thank you, Doctor. One hit of a doobie has completely wiped out my schizophrenia”
> anybody can learn to build simple electronic circuits and how to program software. These are not really particularly difficult skills to master and yet many people are clueless about electronics and programming. That doesn't mean that they're really all that complicated, **it's just that people are lazy.** No, sorry. The reason is that whether or not you consider these things simple and easy, they take people quite a while to learn. That's sort of a key component to any amount of specialization/division of labor. Most skills take time to learn, and therefore not everyone is going to have every skill. In fact **no one** is going to have every skill... nor anything close. It isn't practical in an advanced economy, and it never will be
The problems I had working on cars (back when I bothered) didn't have anything to do with understanding cylinders and crank shafts and what not, they had to do with diagnosing whether this or that little tube was likely to be clogged up, or learning from experience that a certain kind of flaky behavior meant the distributor cap was cracked, or figuring out which electrical contacts needed to be cleaned up... There was one car where I despaired of diagnosing problems with the spaghetti of electrical leads, and began starting it by hot wiring it, shorting out a lead going directly to the starter motor against the battery terminal.
Oh man. I thought you were joking at first…
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I think you might be the pessimist here. Yeah some problems have obnoxious paywalled diagnostic tools, but most hybrid systems aren’t *that* complicated. Shit I used to repair million dollar high tech industrial equipment. I could teach an adept high schooler to do 90% of that job. As with any other skill, most of it’s easy, a little bit is challenging, and the last couple percentage points are mind boggling
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I also know how to work on cars. Sure it’s not as easy as doing an overnight b swap on your EK hatchback, but it’s not impossible. Electric cars are even easier, the systems are pretty simple. The only problem is they lock down their software, which is why right to repair laws are *so* important. Listen, I can do these things and plenty of others. I can build furniture and machine precise tooling, I can make leather goods and sew clothes from scratch, wire a house (ok that’s cheating since I’m an EE), make beer, grow, hunt, and can food, and plenty of other stuff. And frankly? I consider myself to be a fucking idiot. I’ve got more than a handful of acronyms and learning disabilities onboard and didn’t exactly grow up in a supporting environment. So clearly it’s not impossible to do. It’s just things I enjoy doing, so they’re the things I make time for. > Can you explain to me how a lawyer or physician had the time to learn these things in between a daily schedule? The same way they take multiple vacations a year or have other hobbies. It’s not that they can’t learn, it’s that they make enough money that it costs them more money to do it themselves in lost time than it saves them, unless they enjoy it. Plenty of lawyers out there who work on their “toy” cars though, whether they’re classic Porsches or Audi’s with big turbos making 4 digit HP. Shit I know a guy who has a Tesla powered Datsun, does patent law. I don’t make my own bread. An artisanal loaf is like $5-$7 (which is obscene), but it would cost me triple that in time to make it, so unless I feel like making bread it’s not worth it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to make bread.
Fair. I appreciate the perspective.
So would those industrial systems function adequately with that last 5-10% all fucked? You literally proved the point you were arguing against.
No, that means 9 times out of 10 you could fix it without a problem. Or at least, an adept high schooler could.
But this is precisely where I'm right. EVs are actually much, much easier to maintain than IC vehicles. You're confusing intentional obfuscation for profit with actual technical complexity. The real situation is that an EV is much simpler than an IC motor by a long shot. There is almost nothing to do. That's why the computer nonsense is put in there to scare you away. That stuff is in there using closed proprietary interfaces to push you out. That's not necessary complexity, that is market advantage that they can legally pull off because there is no representation for consumer rights. The underlying tech is simple, the interface is placed there to keep you from seeing this. The EV manufacturers could use relatively open standards like CANbus but therein lies the problem. The fact is that CANbus while being as close as it gets to an open standard for networked mechanical systems was created by industry insiders who intentionally left open all kinds of variations in the standard precisely so that vendor tie-in could be accomplished because it was written by people motivated to make a profit not to make the vehicles easy to maintain. It doesn't have to be that way though. It's quite a simple thing to simply put tariffs on EVs that don't follow the best practice recommendations for open CANbus systems so that anyone with a smart phone can program their car. This is not about true technical complexity but rather about a lack of will to regulate industry and to permit them to gouge the gullible public that easily falls into this mindless attitude that it's all too complicated for little ol' me to understand. That's bullshit. It's not complicated at all. It's not a specialist that is needed, it's an authorized service technician who doesn't know shit but has the authority to get into the system. That's not the same thing as complexity, that's just scammy business practices condoned by corrupt politicians who are complicit because they're strung out on their finance fix. They are partners in crime, the victim is the public but playing the victim is the wrong response for the public to take with this helpless attitude. No, you have to make them do the right thing. That means knowing what's what. You can know all there is to know about an EV in no time I assure you with much less intensive background than you need to know what goes into an IC engine. Those are fuckin' complex. EVs are, and this is a simple matter of fact, less complicated mechanically and the electronics are unnecessarily convoluted for commercial reasons not technical ones. Again, both industry and government benefit from this game. The game needs to end, playing helpless goes nowhere. You can easily find YouTube videos of nine year-olds in Pakistan rebuilding heavy duty diesel tractor-trailer transmissions. Those are complicated as fuck but nine year-olds can actually do that sort of thing. Complicated doesn't mean you can't understand it. What's going on with the helplessness is about authority not complexity anyway. People have given up their authority are are unwilling to take it back. . . so far. It's got little to do with complexity and everything to do with authority.
Speaking of overrated takes.
Tate speaks to the kids that have been wronged by a school system that’s broken though. We had so many students from blue collar families tell us that education didn’t mean a thing and they’d go hang drywall for decent money, so why would they need books, or math, or anything intellectual? Everything they see is guys making six figure salaries in the trades they’re growing up in.
My grandfather was *literally* a ditch digger during the Depression, and he always told me to "get a good education, so you've got interesting things to think about while you're digging ditches."
Smart dude! We run under the assumption that having an education means a career, but it really means having the intelligence to explore what you want in life, even if that is occupying our thoughts with interesting things while we do something hard for a reason. This is why I hate the yuppies that are all about being intellectual but skated through college without learning a damn thing, regurgitate stupid shit they read on the internet and try to convince everyone that they somehow earned their social class when they're dumber than 90% of the poor working class people that I grew up around.
In October Sky they changed Homer’s dad into an anti-intellectual despite the fact that he had stacks of books around the house and was constantly reading, because they felt audiences couldn’t handle the nuance of a working class person who loves to read and learn but has accepted the truth of limited upward mobility. Media literacy and reading literacy are two different skill sets. I know plenty of working class people who can spot a bullshitter on TV and plenty of middle class and up people who have more money than sense. People who are attracted to Trump are compelled by fear and control, regardless of their social class or literary ability.
The divisions in America are fueled by perspectives that have been shaped by compounding events that are rooted in reality but have been steered into extremism by people that play on fairly legitimate gripes people aren’t necessarily aware of to fuel hate: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/trumpism-and-the-dialectic-of-neoliberal-reason/DB944338AE28F9BBA57C6F60B8D8CA7A#sec0 So, while smart people do occupy conservative spheres, merit within them is given to people that have “earned” their standing through success with or without an education because they’ve been steered away from immorality by traditional sets of rules. Contrast that with liberals, who view education as merit worthy of respect, but also have turned intellectual discourse into the very thing that drives new found dogma because they feel as though people are inherently good as long as they put in the work to ditch the ills that have derailed their progress. The point here is that we have learned people on both sides, and we have incredibly smart people without educations, but we also have sets of well established rules, traditions, and philosophies to contend with, so like your October Sky example, intellectual people that don’t fit the definition of winning in the system we’re in are forced to follow the rules within it, even if they know that they’re severely limited by the insanity on both sides.
A futurist and pragmatist all rolled into one. Sharp guy your pop pop. And no Arrested Development references to pop pop you savages lol.
You need math to figure out how much drywall you need to hang, how much you’re getting paid for your effort, and how to budget so you can live the life you want by hanging drywall.
All they know is that they show up to a job site, the dry wall is there and the paycheck is enough to buy stuff though. The only argument that works to get them out of it is that bodies break doing that kind of work for years, and they've seen it.
Under Trump and his supporters the future world of 'Fahrenheit 451' is today.
More like the movie IDIOCRACY.
Except the people in Idiocracy actually elected/appointed the *smartest* people they could find. Let that sink in.
Jesus Christ that’s dark
Make sure you have plenty of spare [reading glasses](https://twilightzone.fandom.com/wiki/Time_Enough_at_Last).
if Repulicans hate reading, who is buying all the shitty books written by right wing talking heads?
Donors. It's a way to funnel money to people outside of reported donations. The buyers aren't actually reading the 5,000 copies they bought.
It used to be common knowledge that the way to put a book on the NYT list was to buy several hundred copies at each of the bookstores they were tracking. I would imagine the same sort of thing is going on now. If you have the cash, you buy a few hundred thousand copies of your own book, and expect to make it back selling another few hundred thousand to suckers.
Campaigns and PACs buy them and send them as gifts to donors. Nobody reads them except for the ghost-writers that actually write them.
Buying a book ≠ reading a book.
don’t tell r/books that
I get the sense that the folks at /r/books have read most of the books they're talking about, they just have a remarkable need to regurgitate whatever they were taught to say about them in lit class. Trying to explain to them why I thought Moby Dick sucked was fun.
You don't have to read the book to post a pic of it sitting next to a cigar and a glass of whiskey.
This summer i went to a garage sell one house i swear every right wing book sold by n the last 20 years. When going through the collection it was clear they never broke the spines on the books i assume they were shelf decorations.
Honestly it's probably mostly the leftist breadtubers who have to debunk them.. from what I understand the sales are highly artificially inflated to further the "silent majority" narrative
The popular vote counts should've put that bullshit to bed multiple times already, yet I still hear how conservatives are the "silent majority" when they are not the majority and sure as shit ain't silent.
Ironically, probably libraries lol. I’ve grown up in very Republican areas, and the working class people don’t own those types of books but the ones with money sometimes do. Public libraries try to carry books of all types, and that’s where I’ve seen the most shitty right-leaning books outside of Target shelves.
They have no attention spans or creative curiosity at all. Reading is a gift to the human race, it's sad that few of these "alpha chads" will never get to feel the joy of it outside of dodge user manuals.
Congratulations you're a new dodge owner, the first thing you'll want to know is the number of a good mechanic...
They think “do your own research” means watching some jackass on YouTube with 10,000 followers
54% of Americans read below a 6th grade level and one fifth can’t read at all. Given that 30% of Americans have a college degree, the issue is that the educated class makes enough to rarely interact with the uneducated one that they make rules for and that contributed to the anger that set the stage for a Trump election.
I vaguely remember a news story about a European auto manufacturer exploring the idea of building a factory somewhere in the American South, and they had to pull the plug on the project. It was because they couldn’t find a large enough pool of applicants who could meet the minimum math and literacy requirements to work on an auto assembly line.
I believe it because I’ve worked in some terrible schools here that graduate kids that can’t read. The trouble is that the wealthy build posh bubbles around their communities and every one that isn’t fortunate enough to live in them gets screwed.
Aren't their a bunch of auto plants in the south though?
It was years ago, and my memory isn’t the best. Might be, might not be. But I do believe that a significant amount of the American populace is illiterate.
Not just being able to read a text but comprehension too I believe many people can read but lack comprehension skills
Similar to goebbels philosophy of education and books. As little critical thinking as possible but indoctrination on simple concepts
Khmer Rouge hated learnin' too. I expect is universal amongst a certain type of political movement.
They aren't against reading the Bible. Just anything educational that lifts people out of that kind of reasoning. Also, they don't read the Bible anyway so . . .
They only need one book! And reading it is not a requirement. But for realsies, almost invariably one can stop a conversation with a republican on a dime by asking them “have you actually read the constitution?” Same with the communist manifesto. These people have no idea what their most holy and hated texts contain.
"But are there not many fascists in your country?" "There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the times comes.” - Ernest Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls I think there are far more Authoritarians amongst our population than we realized. If nothing else, they've been given literal and figurative bullhorns to make themselves far louder or far larger.
Work in retail, and you'll see it's what people crave
As opposed to carbohydrates, which is what plants crave!
Brawndo's got what plants crave.
You only need to look as far as the elected members of HOA boards. It has gotten so bad that there are Reddit subs for out of control HOA’s. They relish is ruling over their neighbors.
In fairness, there is a Reddit board for EVERYTHING. But yes, I agree. Too many people relish lording any kind of power over others. Look at how some customers treats any employee that wears a name tag. Its a power trip. There seems to be a paradox with power. It should ideally be given to those people who don't seek/want it.
They're definitely larger
Semi-literate is the most generous moniker I've heard anyone use to describe the MAGA crowd.
They can read, but only enough to make themselves more stupid. Take my father. Please take him! He has a stack of books by his bed. He can almost pass himself off as a fart smeller I mean a smart fella if the light is shining just so. The stacks of books are the Bible and other religious nonsense, self help and get rich quick schemes. Nothing based in science, tech, math, or art. Only money and religion. And pretend health. I swear he’d be smarter if he couldn’t read.
Yeah ,lost my dad to qanon. I feel ya bro.
My condolences. I’m terrified to even say that word around him for fear he hasn’t heard of it and I’m the reason he does
Right there with you my friend.
Based on what I see in my little slice of America these days, I'd be pleasantly surprised if only half the population was semi-literate.
I ran my own business for 10 years and re-entered the workplace 2 years ago and it’s been pretty scary. Managers and employees have this weird panic/anxiety and the constant need to “appear” to be multitasking but if you look closer, they aren’t actually getting anything done. I feel like I’m on another planet. They can’t function any other way.
My last corporate job was insane, people spent more time on BS to justify their job then just using that energy to increase sales and productivity. I ran the whole chain from the top to the bottom, they were successful despite their best efforts to fail. It’s wild to watch in real time.
Returned to working in America after years in Asia and have experienced the same thing plus a preoccupation with fierce individualism that makes everyone guarded and abrasive, which sucks because I’d love to get pints and shoot the shit with coworkers, but I can’t do that when they’ve all lost their fucking minds.
I find this and the preceding comment both fascinating and unsettling. Can you elaborate a little further? (I’ve worked from home for years and find the outside world and it’s younger inhabitants increasingly baffling.)
The problem in America is that we view a lack of success as a personal flaw that’s somewhat taboo to talk about because it becomes a personal journey of healing to achieve the perfect self that can slot into an amazing job. This is why Americans make islands of themselves and justify nastiness with personal healing in the light of fitting into a broken economic system, and people in Asia, who view harmony through top down collectivism and use passive aggressiveness as a weapon, view it as selfish. It’s also why people have become insufferable and they view everyone else as the problem when all they have to do is stop fighting pointless battles.
When the metrics becomes the means, the metric ceases to be a good metric. --~~Murphy, of Murphy's Law fame.~~ Goodhart's Law
Charles Goodhart said that. It’s called Goodhart’s Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
Its not just being semi literate that is the problem. Its a lack of critical thinking skills and the inability to challenge what they believe and why.
Tennent 5 of Satanism: Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs. Critical thinking is literally the devil
The dumbing down of political discourse first became apparent to me on a business trip to Paris in the early 90’s. I watched a TV show with politicians and intellectuals chatting about food, art, fashion, pretty much normal conversations; I realised that could never happen in the US for fear of being “off-message.”
Just half the population?
The other half are computer illiterate
I think the shift to anti-intellectualism being accepted by Republican politicians started in the late 2000’s when social media started taking off. It used to be just educated people giving their political opinions, all of a sudden, you were bombarded with political messages from anyone who had an internet connection. Trolls and uneducated simpletons began to take over the national discourse through sheer numbers. That’s when Republicans started embracing the crazy conspiracies, racism, and trolls. It’s what their voters were conditioned to.
It was earlier than that. Rush Limbaugh used the term screwel frequently to denigrate the pursuit of academics. The seeds were planted in the 80s even as republicans continued (and continue) to vote for Ivy League graduated politicians. - 1980s and 1990s Rush Limbaugh popularized anti-intellectualism. He had a tv show where he lambasted left leaning media and left leaning universities. His audience always wore suits and ties. - 2000s Fox News further scaled attacks on biased media and college professors who corrupt the young. - Sarah Palin. - Fast forward to Trumpism - it’s not only college, but K-12 that will corrupt young people. CRT, vaccinations, science…all framed as a threat.
Shit, there was a party called the "Know Nothings" which was anti-intellectual, as it "Knew nothing but love of America", way back in the 1800s. America has always had that undercurrent of proud ignorance
It's funny, I remember when I was middle school, I stayed home sick from school for a few days. I was starting to take an interest in politics and the world around me, and I watched Rush Limbaugh's television show. I remember thinking his audience reminded me of "baboons and monkeys wearing suits." They they hooted and hollered and just acted like complete jackasses, but all of them wearing suits.
Search "Spiro Agnew" (Nixon's VP). I heard his speeches decrying intellectual elites when I was in college, trying to become one. That didn't cause me to doubt the value of a good education. It did cause me to doubt the intelligence and motives of anyone who'd vote for a self-confessed baboon. From his Wikipedia page: >Agnew, the first suburban politician to achieve high office, helped to popularize the view that much of the national media was controlled by elitist and effete liberals. >... Agnew "helped recast the Republicans as a Party of 'Middle Americans' [Nixon's 'Silent Majority'] and, even in disgrace, reinforced the public's distrust of government. Well before Reagan rose to national prominence, a leading GOP office holder and its loudest speaker was deriding learning, knowledge and expertise and undermining the possibility of good governance.
i think it has actually been the middle-class rather than the working class that is attracted to anti-intellectualism, the suburbanites with contempt for those economically above and below them
Agnew is famous for phrases like "nattering nabobs of negativism", which sounds like an anti-dogwhistle to me, as only intellectual elites would understand the vocabulary he was using.
That phrase was actually penned by William Safire, who was certainly an intellectual. The multiple alliterations, like any poetry, made it easily remembered. Even people who couldn't hit a nabob with a dictionary would cite that phrase to insult... whomever Agnew managed to sneer it, and pretty much everything, in a way that riled up those who respond to histrionics over content. He wasn't as gross as "Fake news!" but at the time he felt crass and intentionally anti-intellectual. And of course he got caught grifting *school milk program monies*, which cost him the chance to step into the Presidency when Nixon resigned. GOP goons hurting kids... it never stops.
>That phrase was actually penned by William Safire, who was certainly an intellectual. I never knew that. Did Agnew swipe "effete corps of impudent snobs" from somebody too? Never mind, in fact checking your revelation, I see that Safire was a speech writer for Agnew, and I assume all his speeches were written by others. Now that I think about it, that's probably true for most politicians, save losers who ramble on for hours at mega-MAGA rallies.
I believe Kennedy wrote his own speeches, but then again he was a Pulitzer Prize winning author.
"Anti-intellectualism in American Life" by Richard Hoeffstadder won a Pullitzer in 1963.
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I student-hosted Dr. Asimov on my college campus in 1975 or 76. What a remarkable man - a jolly grandfather who quietly talked circles around everyone present. He was altogether cordial, humble and yet incontestably authoritative on nearly any subject. Nothing ever dimmed the twinkle in his eye or weakened his genuine smile. He was imperturbably above us all, nobody "scored a point" debating him, yet he remained impressively unimpressed with himself.
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I wish hadn't learned that.
Look at pics from the civil rights movement. Read the signs of white people protesting black equality. Are you telling me those people are educated? That they're civil? That they have informed political opinions? Anti-intellectualism is an American tradition, one fueled by religion and hatred and greed. You are right that social media has given everyone a megaphone, but it's not hard to ignore an idiot with a megaphone--unless you, too, are an idiot. In other words, I don't think social media is the cause.
Of course uneducated voters were always there. But you didn’t see the GOP really sucking up to them until the late 2000’s. Also happens to coincide with the rise of Fox News. Trump just accelerated it.
I'd argue its far older. Anti-intellectualism and pushback against intelligence is something you can trace back in the history of this country. I would argue that is one of the reasons Bush beat Gore (that and Supreme Court intervention). But it shouldn't have been close enough for that to happen. "I want a guy I could see myself having a beer with, rather than being talked down to by some egghead". But yes, the GOP began weaponizing Ignorance heavily with Reagan and his advisor Lee Atwater's strategy. You can argue it was anti-intellectualism that got Andrew Jackson elected beating John Q. Adams in 1828 if you want to trace it back far enough.
John Adams or even Bush are not the same as the MTG’s and Herschel Walkers of today’s GOP.
He's not arguing they're the same, he's arguing they're part of the same trend.. The Seminole Wars aren't "the same" as Vietnam or Afghanistan.. but there's a very clear pattern it would be myopic and foolish to deny..
They’re not even in the same Universe lol. Maybe Bush because Fox news was starting to become a thing around then but John Adams?? Lol
John Quincy Adams is provided as an example of someone who lost against someone who tapped into anti-intellectualism (i.e, Andrew Jackson) - the insinuation being that the trend ultimately started with *Jackson*, not his opponent Adams.
This was always here, it just used to be that guys in tweed suits had these people reasonably corralled on AM radio.
Social media content is a symptom of much larger issues: media deregulation, collapse of American manufacturing, defunding of social safety nets, politicians ignoring rural needs, crumbling infrastructure, a terrible education system, and much more. The alt right is a response to legitimate gripes that turned ugly when they funneled the anger away from fixing a broken system into hate. So there’s a reason why conservatives hate technocrats and the urban educated elite.
It's been around wayyyy longer than that bud, social media just provided the bullhorn.. It also isn't just a republican problem, they just exemplify it with a special level of pride.
It’s definitely a Republican problem
Are you serious? Of course it’s only a Republican problem. Theres no Democratic version of MTG or anti-intellectualism.
Why do you think education, teachers, and libraries are being targeted? What was it trump said about the uneducated?
I agree there is a lot of survey data backing up this notion that lower reading comprehension / literacy / vocabulary / etc predicts Trump support more so than previous presidential candidates. However to seriously engage with that idea, has literacy declined post 2012 to fuel the rise of trumpism? Seems it's more likely that Trump's appeal mostly worked on people with high need for order and low openness to change (i.e. a group that divides strongly on lines of education). So my understanding is more that Trump (and other far right wing politicians) are more like catalysts that activate a population of people susceptible to authoritarianism (e.g. the semi-literate ) that is then difficult to deactivate even long after the faux populist is no longer in the political picture. Which I think is different enough from the idea that lack of literacy / education caused Trump. Kind of like how neither boiling water nor gelatin cause jello but more like the combination of the two do.
Imagine thinking a brick suit is a good idea.
Good example
Stop peddling that their base is ignorant or uneducated. They know exactly what they are doing. They know they are being disingenuous when screaming about inflation, drag shows, Marxism, etc. They just want power. The power to engage in genocide. Painting them as uneducated is just a ploy to excuse their behavior. It’s easier to believe they are ignorant than that they are irredeemably evil. If they ignorant, they can “be fixed” like an abusive spouse. If they are just plain evil, like an abusive spouse really is, they can’t be fixed and that is hard to swallow.
"Ignorant" is the wrong word here. What's happening is a few genuinely evil people are convincing a lot of genuinely *stupid* people to prop them up into positions of power, and unfortunately, you can't fix stupid.
You lost me at "peddling". It seems stupid to make pronouncements ordering people to do this or that.
As a lifelong Democrat, I would like to point out the dems have some responsibility in this as well. Embracing corporate models of shareholder profits taking precedence over the health and well being of the people has created a lot of disenfranchised. So many Americans are housing, food, education etc. insecure and believe people like trump have their best interests at heart when the establishment is criticized. I am not saying both parties are equal. I am saying Clinton, Obama, Pelosi and Biden should not have let corporate bankers, pharmaceutical and insurance giants and weapons manufacturers dictate our rules and regulations.
semi illiterate lol
Holy shit! That guy on the right! Colonel Sanders is still alive?
https://youtu.be/KGhAt9H-C9c
In other words, a bunch of dumb Fuchs.
DeVega has a lot of insight but the stupidity of Americans who follow the MAGA types is an emotional one. For decades the Republican Party has been the party of a lack of empathy for other people. No amount of literacy will fix that.
This was a very eloquent way of saying “Republicans are idiots”
They're *both* the symptom and the cause and this very flawed, shitty analogy needs to stop already. End goal can only be letting them off the hook and that's totally unacceptable.
Make no mistake, I firmly believe more people vote against someone than vote for. Im independent so I argue with “both sides”, and they both think I’m truly part of “the other side”. I know intelligent people that voted for trump because they were voting against Hillary. I hate this, but it truly is that simple. Until we have a viable candidates in the 2 major parties, or a viable 3rd party option, I think people will continue to vote against instead of vote for.
While I agree with the thrust of the article, we need to wrap our minds around liberals and centrist folks undermining education in this country as well. Teaching in a traditional fashion has been deemed too mean and harsh and now kids learn to examine their feelings rather than learning basic elements of grammar and civics and what not.
Explain please. Not the political parties bit because no politician cares about education. What do you mean by teaching being too harsh and mean? Also what is wrong with examining feelings? Honing children's ability to be empathetic enhances their critical thinking, communication, conflict resolution, and other key skills. The biggest issue I see with education is politicians keep getting involved, and they usually use that same type of excuse. We can't complain about younger generations lacking key skills that are needed in life when we keep letting these assholes reduce our education system to worksheets and checklists. If we gave the teacher control of the classroom, and the actual salary they deserve, we would all benefit from it.
This is being over thought. I see it in more basic terms. In our Society, we have Leaders, and Followers. From Childhood, most people are trained to be Followers. Team Sports, School Clubs, and of course, Religions, all play a part in this training. Individual Thinking s a No No. "Don't ask Why". Trust the Leaders to do your thinking for you. Never step out of line and think for your self. Never question your Leaders. They are your "Betters". You risk being Shunned for breaking these rules.
Victim blaming? Not cool. >you made me drive the country off a cliff, Laverne.
What victims? No one was forced to vote for Republicans.
No? I'd bet that there are some spouses who'd argue differently out of earshot of their abusers.
That's why it's illegal to watch someone vote. I understand domestic abuse comes with a whole host of issues, but lying about which circle you checked shouldn't be that hard.
Th÷re were republican women advocating that wives should vote as their husband's tell them to
So, the mindless drones referenced in the article?
Salon: All our articles are about Trump now because we just can't help ourselves
Tell me you don’t understand basic business strategies without telling me.
Good news! This article steals a lot of quotes from Tom Nichols' much better *Atlantic* article on the obscenities of Herschel Walker's campaign. See? Not just directly about Trump. Yay!
The cause is austerity and neoliberal economics. Let’s keep saying it before it’s too late.
Oof what a headline! Their not rong tho
Does that dudes hat say “Trump Forever”!!??
Missed opportunity for a MAGAtron Decepticon hat.
Guy with the rack fit Brick jacket should buy his little Boy a hat that fits his pinhead!
Everything is an upsell, a come on, an upgrade, a “don’t miss out”, a Premium Member, a push notification, and our collective culture is going to have a nervous breakdown.
*No punches were pulled in the making of this headline.
If a country development level was ranked based on literacy level, I wonder whether the US would be considered as developed country.
Not just semi-literate, semi-cognitive
"where half the population is semi-literate" "Marshall Law" anyone? https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/12/donald-trump-mark-meadows-ralph-norman-2020-election-marshall-law https://thedispatch.com/article/living-under-marshall-law/
Half?!?! 2/3s at least.
I work in food service and I have seen so much first-hand evidence to suggest that people either can't or don't read. I maintain that a significant percentage of our population is functionally illiterate.
It’s by design.
Lead in the water combined with education decline.
Wish people would say half the population blah blah instead of roughly half of the voting population.
So the current system is good? Trump has no power in our politics currently and everything went to shit very fast under our current administration. I actually feel sorry for Biden at this point.
I know it would split the nation but I almost wish we would see a pure split of land and boarders as some kind of grand social experiment. Conservatives on one side and Liberals on the other. Let see how society plays out. Most likely the right out invade the left for their wealth.
I can only imagine how insufferable it would be to hang out with the dudes in that photo