2d ago

Have Americans always been this stupid?

Sorry if the premise is inflammatory, but I’ve been stymied by this for a while. How did we go from something like 1940s era collectivism or 1960s era leftism to the current bizarro political machine that seems to have hypnotized a large portion (if not majority) of the country? I get it - not everything is bad now, and not everything was good then. FDR’s internment camps, etc.

That said - our country seems to be at a low point in intellectualism and accountability. The DHHS head is an antivaxxer, the deputy chief of the DOJ is a far-right podcast nutball, etc. Their supporters seem to have no nuance to their opinion beyond “well, Trump said he’d fix the economy and I don’t like woke.”

Have people always been this unserious and unquestioning, or are we watching the public’s sanity unravel in real time? Or am I just imagining some idealistic version of the past that never existed, where politicians acted in good faith and people cared about the social order?

316 comments

I would say "stupid" is a judgement you should keep between your ears. I think Americans are undereducated before they get released into a mad for-profit higher education system that gives them debts for life (but hitherto also great sciencing at a high level). The strong cultural undercurrent of exceptionalism hardly ever lets them look elsewhere for comparison. And the political system, which is based on who can spend more money, not so much on ideas, is proving to be a system that's rarely bringing out the best people for top jobs. But it's a dog and pony show and that favors characters over good policies. The fragmentation of people all watching the same news show at night 3 decades ago, to watching partisan 24h news channels 2 decades ago, to splintering even further on the socials now adds to the problem. There is no largely unified audience with the same facts at their disposal.
It's also nice that Trump is now dismantling the democratic state because voting in the US always gets filtered through electoral colleges and gerimandered districts, skewing results to favor the two main parties, often only one of them. It was pretend-democratic until now.
Something that gets overlooked easily is the long history of fascist rules that was in place in the south after the civil war. Jim Crow laws masqueraded as democracy for a long time and every time courts tried to put a stop to it, the white people in charge found other ways to be a-holes. That's part of American culture already.
America has always had a penchant for whacky leaders. Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. None of them fit my idea of a virtuous leader. But at least the ones this century adhered to a decorum, an unwritten standard of how to behave as president. Nixon didn't want to get caught. Trump doesn't give a sh!t. So the leadership culture has shifted, not for the better.
All this mixes a large chunk, an uncurious population that still sees itself pretty much as a role model for the world, falling for simple populist messages. It should also be said that tarring all Americans with the same brush is unfair. I think it was the votes of less than a third of eligible voters that made Trump 2.0 a reality, roughly another third just behind it, with the remainder not bothering to vote at all. I would say the often fantasized silent majority is actually not pro Trump.
So calling all Americans stupid is not right. There are a lot of people hurting right now as they watch their country develop in a bad way. We need those people to stand up and fight and calling them names doesn't help.
(Other countries have gone down similar routes, have had whacky leaders, have done questionable things. The US is not alone on this path.)
- I really appreciate your level headed take.
- I think it was the votes of less than a third of eligible voters that made Trump 2.0 a reality, roughly another third just behind it, with the remainder not bothering to vote at all. I would say the often fantasized silent majority is actually not pro Trump.
  That means that a third didn't bother, though, despite Trump very much being a known quantity. The exact reason why they didn't vote is up to debate and it's probably several reasons at once (these people are not a monolith), but it doesn't say any good things about them or the political system.
  
  I agree. I didn't mean to imply all of the remainder would be pro just one of the candidates. My guess is that it's still enough to make up a silent majority. Which sounds great but no one can prove anyways.
  I'm inclined to give American voters a limited raincheck on not bothering to show up. Voting is often a booklet of ballots on various issues and elections for office. It takes forever to fill it in. That explains the long, slow-moving lines outside pulling stations, much rarer occurrences in other democracies. And that's only the people who are able to come on a workday (and didn't have the foresight or were unable to get mail-ins). That's after a registration process that can have Kafkaesque features in many states. So I would forgive the single mother who didn't have time to do this between working her two low paid jobs. It's part of a subtle but deliberate disenfranchisement. We'll add that one to the list of grievances as well.
  
  It's insane to me that some people don't have this day off.
  
  That's for red states, they purposely voter suppression blue areas, in blue states you don't have voting problems, or any suppression. One of things is red state purging voters and rigging the machines
  
  Even blue states vote on a working day and can have ridiculously long lines due to the booklet voters are asked to fill in. That's already bad from my POV. All the other shenanigans are extra, on top of that.
  
  Yeah, that's fair. They certainly don't make it easy to vote in USA, which is deliberate to a large extent. Easy to forget.
- It should also be said that tarring all Americans with the same brush is unfair. I think it was the votes of less than a third of eligible voters that made Trump 2.0 a reality
  But that means all the non-voters are to blame as well.
  And why are the streets so empty now? I can't see and hear all these democrats out there.
  https://martin-niemoeller-stiftung.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/NiemollerQuoteMonmouthNJ580pxw.jpg
  
  I have stated elsewhere in this thread that I have limited sympathy for the US non-voters. So refer to that if you're curious. I am trying my best not to condemn everybody equally. A free election, in most democracies, means you're free not to go. Perhaps we'd all be fine with non-voters if Mrs. Harris had won. Putting blame at their feet is also shutting the barn door when the horse has already bolted. We should motivate the ones willing to stand up and resist. You don't want to injure their pride and get them to jump on the MAGA bandwagon out of spite.
  There are protests taking place. I just saw Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were in the news leading rallies and protests. American and Canadian protesters gathered on either side of one of the lakes, forgot which one. There are people who are saying something. Even GOP voters are shouting down their elected leaders in town hall meetings because Elon chainsawed a benefit that affected them and theirs. It's easy to draw parallels to 1930s Germany but this Trump 2.0 administration will plot its own despicable course.
  One of the reasons why you don't see so many mass gatherings like you saw in Serbia recently or Slovakia is also US infrastructure. It's real hard to get thousands of Americans into one place anywhere when there isn't sufficient public transport and it would statistically be 1.2 people per car - you'd need a Rhode Island just for parking.

316 comments