Stupidism as a political force in the U.S.A. (and other Western countries?)

[Loren Pechtel]

Indeed, how dare the stupid plebs criticize or question government. They should just shut the fuck up.

Yeah, they should. Leave the debate to those who actually think rather than pig out on disinformation.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

In what ways are our rulers inept concerning our present financial situation?

Jimmy already answered that one. It's those damn kids on my lawn. It's anarchy!

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

defining "stupidism"

Stupidism = populism,

anti-trade, anti-immigrant, employer-bashing China-bashing
= both Republicans and Democrats, competing for this voting bloc


A good example (maybe best) of "stupidism" in the U.S. is the China-bashing and employer-bashing and "bring back the factories" sloganism, of both Left and Right.

Idiots who worship factories as being the source of wealth and see a decrease in these and some job losses, imagine this must be the cause of anything bad happening in the economy, especially as the uncompetitive excess factory workers (or factory job-seekers) experience reasonable decrease in their incomes (as a result of their decreasing value and thus decreasing wages); and their reaction is to seek scapegoats, and they listen to demagogues like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and Thom Hartmann, who pander to their rage by giving them scapegoats to blame for "shipping our jobs" overseas or "stealing our jobs" etc. And the increasingly uncompetitive and enraged stupidist factory-workers gobble up this demagoguery, just as the Luddites 200 years ago swallowed it.

Back in the 80s and 90s Republicans had a problem with this, because they promoted good ideas like more trade and NAFTA etc. Then they began to back away from this, after the Pat Buchanan's began to score points with the stupidist Republicans, and then finally they even did a 180-degree reversal with trade-bashing Trump, and bingo! they stole the crybaby-stupidism-populism voting bloc away from the Demos.

And today, the Thom Hartmann's and Michael Moore's are flabbergasted at how they are losing these stupidists to the Repubs who have captured the stupidism populist vote. This vote was easy to be combined also with the immigrant-bashing vote, to the benefit of xenophobe Right-wing populists/stupidists.

Like Sanders, Hartmann has a problem doing the China-bashing because he doesn't want to sound xenophobic or racist, but he tries to make up for this by joining the employer-bashing in order to win over the anti-immigrants, i.e., by demanding punishment of employers who hire illegal aliens. This maybe helps Demos trim their loss of the stupidist immigrant-bashing populist vote, but not much, because Repubs too have seen the value of the employer-bashing vote, and their talk-show demagogues also have joined the anti-immigrant employer-bashing chorus. How they suddenly turn against the profiteering capitalists (e.g., Chamber of Commerce) and adopt Marxist rhetoric when it's expedient!

And now Biden and other Demos are trying to figure out how to out-stupid the Repubs and win back their populist stupidism voting bloc. So --

Vote for the stupidist demagogue of your choice, but vote!

You can choose between the Blue stupidist and Red stupidist fanatics, trying to outdo each other in their mass appeal to the most low and vulgar of the populace. So whether you're a Blue stupidist disciple or Red stupidist disciple, get out there and support the stupidist-China-bashing employer-bashing America-First-babbling Demagogue of your choice. And "bring back" those factories so America will be Great again!

 

[zorq]

Context free both-sideism is at this point as tedious as it is pernicious. Sigh.

I mean sure, yes, "both-sides," okay. Some Dems have some regressive ideas that can be called populist. But even Lumpen here struggles to broad-brush these ideas firmly on the Dems as a whole while they have become the entire party platform for the Reps. There is a choice here and it is quite easy if you take a moment to look just a little past the strawmen set up to block the view.

 

[Swammerdami]

I read that "ONLY" one-fifth of Americans support QAnon conspiracy madness. Is this statistic — 80% of Americans do not suffer from one particular madness — supposed to make us optimistic?

The QAnon conspiracy theory has been linked to several violent acts since 2018, with QAnon supporters arrested for threatening politicians, breaking into the residence of the Canadian prime minister, an armed standoff near the Hoover dam, a kidnapping plot and two kidnappings, and at least one murder.

QAnon adherents believe that Donald Trump is trying to save the world from a cabal of satanic pedophiles. The conspiracy theory’s narrative includes centuries-old antisemitic tropes, like the belief that the cabal is harvesting blood from abused children, and it names specific people, including Democratic politicians and Hollywood celebrities, as participants in a global plot. Experts call these extreme, baseless claims “an incitement to violence”.

The conspiracy theory’s claims have put ordinary people at risk. The FBI identified QAnon in 2019 as a potential domestic terror threat and the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point described it as a “novel challenge to public security”.

Does it cheer you up to know that "only" several dozens of millions of Americans have beliefs like the one I've reddened?

 

[Swammerdami]

Two weeks ago there was an important Senatorial election in Georgia. One of the candidates was the Pastor of a Baptist church; indeed he is the chief pastor of an especially famous congregation. The other candidate was an ex-football player who paid some of his female playthings to KILL (at least in the views of many or most evangelical Christians) their babies.

Many of the Georgia voters identify themselves as White Born-Again or Evangelical Christians. Can you guess who these evangelical Christians voted for? ("You get three guesses but the first two don't count.")

Georgia's White Evangelical Christians voted for Walker over Warnock by an Eight-to-One margin.

That's right; 88% of Georgia's White Evangelical Christians voted for the baby killer while only 11% voted for the evangelical Christian pastor. That's EIGHTY-EIGHT percent. With two E's.

Wow,

 

[Patooka]

That's right; 88% of Georgia's White Evangelical Christians voted for the baby killer while only 11% voted for the evangelical Christian pastor. That's EIGHTY-EIGHT percent. With two E's.

88 seems an appropriate amount for some reason...

 

[steve_bank]

Human nature is what it is. However much as individuals think we are above it we are all in the end 'human'.

Collectively it is hard for or species to act rationally in the common interest.

Cina's authoritarian approach is rig hard social controls.

In the wsetern liberal democies the idea is that government that governs least is best. The result except for extrmes like muder and theft and other criminal rules we are free to do whatever we like whenever we like.

The result at times is chaos and sometimes tragedy. It means you can stupidly overeat, over drink, smoke, and drug yourself until it kills you.

People jump off cliffs with a wing suit gliding feet from the rocks with a high probability of death or injury for a thrill. To me pretty stupid.


Inherent in wetern liberal systems is the right to act stupidly and irrationally.

The problem I have with 'stupidism' is people look to blame somebody else for commonsense of acting stupidly.

In SK the oilce are not to blame. Pele who wlakd into the rea are to blame.

There was an American concert a few years back with a huge crowd. The crowd surged to the stage and people were crushed. People had infants in their arms. Pretty stupid IMO.

 

[Worldtraveller]

The problem with the 20% statistic is thatthey vote in disproportionately high numbers.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Indeed, how dare the stupid plebs criticize or question government. They should just shut the fuck up.

That is what you tell them to do all the fucking time. You insult them, call them names, call them stupid. Anyone that questions whether Government should or shouldn't do something you disagree with, you are all over that group of people. Such blatant hypocrisy stopped being funny a long time ago.

The problem with the 20% statistic is thatthey vote in disproportionately high numbers.

Indeed, "tyranny of the minority" isn't some new concept. It has been seen in dictatoships across the globe. It got Trump the nomination and into the White House! With the worst part being most of them couldn't defend, at least in public, their backing of Trump.

 

[Swammerdami]

I was half-joking when I invented the term "Stupidism" to describe American politics.

However I just stumbled on a YouTube discussing a book on the topic by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), a theologian and anti-Nazi activist. "Stupidity is perhaps less a psychological problem than a sociological problem.... Every strong upsurge of power (political or religious) infects a large part of humankind with stupidity."

 

[jab]

I've decided to change the title of this thread. Instead of Is stupidism rising faster in Western countries than, say, South Korea or Singapore?, a more appropriate title is Stupidism as a political force in the U.S.A. (and other Western countries?)

I'd better define stupidism. Let us stipulate that typical IQs are similar between polities. By "stupidism" I refer to political movements in which campaign promises are especially chosen to elicit stupid support from voters (especially low-information voters who are easily confused). I'm turning the thread over to you guys. You can start by improving the definition of Stupidism.

Examples of stupidist policies are Building a Wall and getting Mexico to pay for it OR Severing a trade alliance and placing Northern Ireland in an untenable position

I get much of my political news — fact or opinion — from IIDB. Sometimes I reach out, hoping one of many IIDB experts will summarize what I can't even find with Google. Feel free to discuss Stupidism in general, but I am especially interested in knowing Which countries experience highest recent growth rate of political stupidism? And please help me with the subject in the title: Is stupidism rising faster in Western countries than, say, South Korea or Singapore? Feel free to discuss EITHER the prevalence of stupidism OR the rate of change of that prevalence.

I'll try to avoid poisoning the well, but will admit to posting the following in another thread.

This happened in pre-Brexit days and when London was the financial capital of the world.

Yes,
Here the implicit "Brexit" is used as a sarcastic denigration, akin to the Pond's other side's "Trumpism."

Apology for the hijack. If you want to discuss the purple text, start a new thread, please: Discuss the rise of Stupidism throughout the world. My vague impression — please correct me if I'm wrong — is that stupidism as a political movement is rising more rapidly in Western countries rather than Asian. U.S., U.K., What other countries have seen recent rises in stupidism? Obviously China, Iran and especially Russia have made big blunders lately, but I'm not at all sure if that should be mainly attributed to the stupidist political movement. Instead of general voter stupidity, the blunders in China, Iran and Russia are due to decisions by individual leaders, themselves at best only semi-elected.

It had been more than half a century before Brexit when Britain was last the financial centre of the World.
An old example of left stupidism: the prolonged frequent strikes in the 70s in Britain against a Labour government.

 

[jab]

I think by stupidism we're really talking about nationalism, globalization, economics, and demagoguery. In which case a combination of globalization and economics are causing a rise in nationalism and demagoguery.

Is it happening faster in the West? It depends on which country we're talking about. My guess is that the rate of nationalistic fervour and the rise of demagogues is directly proportional to a country's economic and social health. We're seeing it rise quickly in the U.S. because of.. your economic and social health.

We're seeing it in Canada too, but our population is a little less susceptible to incompetent politicians. We've voted in the Liberals recently because that was actually the smart decision to make, and Federally we're a little more savvy.

In the East it also depends on the country, some of them have much more serious problems than the health of their democracy.

Er--re. Canada: Albertans have voted in Danielle Smith as their premier. Dumbo multiple-black-facer, pettily corrupt (WE charity, SNC-Lavalin, free vaccays from foreign million/billionaires) Justin Trudeau is our Prime Minister. To many Canadians the anti-masker, anti-vaxxer Freedom convoy criminals are patriotic heroes. the Canadian Green Party ousts their new black Jewish leader this year because she wasn't sufficiently anti-Israel, not because of any internal difference on environmental policy

 

[jab]

defining "stupidism"

Stupidism = populism,

anti-trade, anti-immigrant, employer-bashing China-bashing
= both Republicans and Democrats, competing for this voting bloc


A good example (maybe best) of "stupidism" in the U.S. is the China-bashing and employer-bashing and "bring back the factories" sloganism, of both Left and Right.

Idiots who worship factories as being the source of wealth and see a decrease in these and some job losses, imagine this must be the cause of anything bad happening in the economy, especially as the uncompetitive excess factory workers (or factory job-seekers) experience reasonable decrease in their incomes (as a result of their decreasing value and thus decreasing wages); and their reaction is to seek scapegoats, and they listen to demagogues like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and Thom Hartmann, who pander to their rage by giving them scapegoats to blame for "shipping our jobs" overseas or "stealing our jobs" etc. And the increasingly uncompetitive and enraged stupidist factory-workers gobble up this demagoguery, just as the Luddites 200 years ago swallowed it.

Back in the 80s and 90s Republicans had a problem with this, because they promoted good ideas like more trade and NAFTA etc. Then they began to back away from this, after the Pat Buchanan's began to score points with the stupidist Republicans, and then finally they even did a 180-degree reversal with trade-bashing Trump, and bingo! they stole the crybaby-stupidism-populism voting bloc away from the Demos.

And today, the Thom Hartmann's and Michael Moore's are flabbergasted at how they are losing these stupidists to the Repubs who have captured the stupidism populist vote. This vote was easy to be combined also with the immigrant-bashing vote, to the benefit of xenophobe Right-wing populists/stupidists.

Like Sanders, Hartmann has a problem doing the China-bashing because he doesn't want to sound xenophobic or racist, but he tries to make up for this by joining the employer-bashing in order to win over the anti-immigrants, i.e., by demanding punishment of employers who hire illegal aliens. This maybe helps Demos trim their loss of the stupidist immigrant-bashing populist vote, but not much, because Repubs too have seen the value of the employer-bashing vote, and their talk-show demagogues also have joined the anti-immigrant employer-bashing chorus. How they suddenly turn against the profiteering capitalists (e.g., Chamber of Commerce) and adopt Marxist rhetoric when it's expedient!

And now Biden and other Demos are trying to figure out how to out-stupid the Repubs and win back their populist stupidism voting bloc. So --

Vote for the stupidist demagogue of your choice, but vote!

You can choose between the Blue stupidist and Red stupidist fanatics, trying to outdo each other in their mass appeal to the most low and vulgar of the populace. So whether you're a Blue stupidist disciple or Red stupidist disciple, get out there and support the stupidist-China-bashing employer-bashing America-First-babbling Demagogue of your choice. And "bring back" those factories so America will be Great again!

Still slurping the dumb-inducing neo-con Koolaid.

 

[Elixir]

Still slurping the dumb-inducing neo-con Koolaid.

Yabut, both sides do it!

 

[Bomb#20]

Feel free to discuss Stupidism in general, but I am especially interested in knowing Which countries experience highest recent growth rate of political stupidism? And please help me with the subject in the title: Is stupidism rising faster in Western countries than, say, South Korea or Singapore? Feel free to discuss EITHER the prevalence of stupidism OR the rate of change of that prevalence.

Well, to my mind, the most salient recent examples of stupidism are Germany's decision to shut down its nuclear power industry, and the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement's decision to throw away all the fragile partial democracy it had somehow preserved for twenty years in a totalitarian country for the sake of getting to poke a tiger in the face with a sharp stick.

U.S., U.K., What other countries have seen recent rises in stupidism? Obviously China, Iran and especially Russia have made big blunders lately, but I'm not at all sure if that should be mainly attributed to the stupidist political movement. Instead of general voter stupidity, the blunders in China, Iran and Russia are due to decisions by individual leaders, themselves at best only semi-elected.

True; but all those individual leaders got into power in the first place only because all three countries fell prey to mass stupidism, generations ago.

 

[steve_bank]

You want stupid?

Iran and Saudi Arabia out ot destroy each other.
Ethiopians slaughtering each other.
Northern Ireland.


A long list of groups who choose destruction and conflict over compromise.

 

[TSwizzle]

Is stupidism rising faster in Western countries than, say, South Korea or Singapore?, a more appropriate title is Stupidism as a political force in the U.S.A. (and other Western countries?)

Oh yes, the stupid energy policies being enacted out of fear of the weather changing.

 

[Swammerdami]

History is often divided into periods: the Early Medieval Period, the Carolingian Renaissance, Early Modern Era, etc. I'm not joking when I say that future historians may refer to the present time as the Age of Stupidity.

As just one example, an Oklahoman woman had a "molar pregnancy". Not only does this mean the fetus can never be viable, but it is life-threatening for the mother until the defective fetus is aborted. The woman had severe bleeding and other symptoms and wanted emergency service, but was told to wait in the parking lot until she was "crashing" -- i.e., until she was on the verge of heart attack or bleeding out: then they could help her. The hospital was trying to be helpful but did not want to commit an Oklahoma felony.

Living as a hermit in rural Thailand, I wondered if my view of American stupidism -- based on QOPAnon pundits and other nonsense on YouTube -- was exaggerated or ill-founded. The two Americans who lived near me were both highly intelligent:

• One is a talented businessman, music composer etc. who thinks vaccines have nanobots and the Obama birth certificate was fake.
• The other is autistic. Although he's a high-paid software engineer, his autism is severe. To call him a high-functioning autist would give high-functioning autists a bad name. When I chatted with him a few weeks ago I learned that he was completely unaware of the January 6 insurrection! One might applaud his ability to stay isolated from stupidism ... until despite this reminder of his total ignorance of contemporary politics he insisted the two parties had equal merit.

. . . But Farangs who end up in rural Thailand are a weird bunch, especially those who arrive long before retirement age.

Non-American Farangs aren't much better. I recently mentioned my Irish neighbor who said "There must be something wrong with the Jews. Why else have they been hated for 2000 years?" Anti-Semitism was the rule among Brit expats near me.

But last year I moved to Chiang Mai -- a city full of Americans and other Farangs. Unlike weird retirees, many of these Chiang Mai Americans are operating businesses here, or are young affluent tourists. One would hope that the young affluent Americans here aren't as stupid or nasty as GOP politicians or the scum one finds on YouTube, yet today a young white American male said something so nasty to me that I was startled.

-- -- -- -- -- --

I'll describe that episode in a follow-up post, but first some facts about mask-wearing in Thailand.

Thailand took Covid VERY seriously. Its famous April Water Festival (called "New Years Festival" in Chiang Mai) was restricted in 2020, 2021, 2022 so this was the first year since 2019 that the country rejoiced with water as usual. Covid is low priority now -- the temperature scannings enforced at many public places are a thing of the past -- although some people are still being hospitalized for Covid despite already having four vaccine jabs.

After meeting the nasty American today I made a point of looking for masks. An overwhelming majority of street vendors and even motorcycle drivers still wear masks. In a shopping mall, about 98% of employees wear masks and over 90% of shoppers also have mouth and nose covered. (A large number of those not wearing masks have masks hanging down at ready.) I noticed three Farangs in the shopping mall and one of those was even wearing a mask.

Two years ago one could distinguish Thais from Farangs by looking for the masks. Sometimes every single Thai wore a mask and every single Farang did NOT wear a mask. Those who say this proves the Thai people are sheeple afraid of the police do NOT know the Thai people well! The Thai people ARE smart enough to understand "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff." I wear a mask when out and about. It does double-duty: Not only does the mask protect from microbes, it also filters out smoke particles: Some days Chiang Mai is the most smoke-polluted city in the world.

If the mask interfered with my breathing I'd take it off but it doesn't and I ... don't sweat the small stuff!

 

[Swammerdami]

This morning I visited a chocolate shop. (Why I visited is beyond the scope of this report.) The shop is adjacent to a chocolate factory, so I would have worn a mask in any event out of courtesy: they don't want my microbes in their melting chocolate.

A young white man entered while I was there, purchasing one chocolate bar. I suppose he was affluent: the smallish bar was the equivalent of $5 and elsewhere one can buy a box with 16 pieces of nice Belgian chocolate for $8. Or about a dozen small Mars bars for $8.

He said something to the cashier and I immediately recognized the American accent. I said so. His response? He asked me if I was sick, obviously referring to my mask sarcastically.

What? As I say, mask-wearing is more common than not among Thais, but apparently I failed his shibboleth test. I was like a Thai sheeple, I guess, not smart enough not to wear a mask. He went on to say that his intuition told him I'd lived in Thailand for a long time.

("We're virile Americans from the Home of the Brave. Unafraid of the AR-15s and Glock-19s all y'all are packing; why would we be scared of some tiny microbes?")

I mentioned in a recent thread that I have very few friends. I'm actually rather friendly and popular with many Thais and enjoy chatting with them. But white male Americans? No thanks.