People actually take pride, and are regularly invited on television to share, that they  ”know,” against all evidence, that, say, the earth is 6000 years old and Obama is a secret Muslim, while they’ve absolutely no idea where their tax money goes or whether gay people can be “cured.”  This turns out to be convenient for thieves and charlatans and their pancaked cheerleaders, who sit there and listen to people tell us that Saddam was responsible for 911, we found WMD, George Bush “kept us safe,” and the moon is made of green cheese, never batting a false eyelash as they solemnly intone, “Some Democrats disagree.”  

You have to hand it to them, really.  Somewhere, in an undisclosed location, Republicans found a way to put over a “fuck everybody, we’re taking all the money” strategy by using the one product America still manufactures in relative abundance, stupid people, and bringing them over to their side.  Back in the comparatively circumspect era of Kevin Phillips’ “The Emerging Republican Majority,” blatant appeals to racism, xenophobia, and militarism were to be couched in namby-pamby terms like “states’ rights,” “America, right or wrong,” and “welfare queens,” so as not to overly rile those with 3-digit IQ’s and all their teeth.

Well, now that the kleptocratic policies thus sold have been universally adopted and so demonstrably failed, it’s now time to forget about that 3-digit bunch, and run around in a stars and bars g-string, riling up the trailer set with the likes of Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly.  Bush said it so well, “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones we’re focusing on.”  Who do they have left?

It must be kind of liberating to be down to that quarter of the American people who will absolutely believe anything, as long as it’s racist, punishing, and bloodthirsty, but no one outside of the mainstream media think this insulting strategy might work, considering that the stupid are still, despite Republicans’ relentless attack on education in all its insidious forms, a small minority.  We’re stupid, but we’re not that stupid.