'Stop electing stupid people': Rage as Marjorie Taylor Greene flunks American history test

I dunno... in a way, that's representation in its purest form - angry, stupid Republicans have one of their own in office.
- I wouldn’t mind that as much if it were actual proportional representation.
  
  There'd be way more stupid people in office then lol.
  But there'd be more poor and collar workers too which would HOPEFULLY get more progressive legislation on the board...
  Or more MAGA crazies so...
- 🇷🇺 Russian representation

Now there's rage? The "jewish space lasers" wasn't a problem??? Need to deport her ass to Russia where she belongs.
- Based on that article, the rage is just twitter users calling her a moron. Nothing to see here, her ineptitude will continue to be ignored or praised by her base.

I thought she just got caught with a live question. But no, she hand crafted this claim with all the time in the world and still utterly biffed it. What a joke.
- biffed it
  Damn, haven't heard that one in a long time

You guys have to look at it in context. She IS representing her district. She's actually above average around those parts. It's sad and off putting when viewed through your eyes but in her district she is a towering intellect, the likes of which will rarely be repeated in the future. We should all celebrate her efforts to participate in representative government.

Well, you can’t know everything about everything, that’s why you have to collaborate with other experts so you can supplement each others knowledge.
But every job has some reasonable expectations of knowledge and standards because that’s what doing it competently requires.
Why is basic history and civics important for a congressperson? You’re essentially helping right laws and regulations which will impact generations to come, and if you’re uninformed you may be open to being manipulated or mislead. The double danger for anyone in congress is that foreign interests can also mislead or manipulate for malicious reasons, and not just greed reasons.
So expecting basic level of information from a congressperson isn’t elitism, I’d say it’s a matter of homeland and national security.
- The right wing have spent decades spinning competence, experience, education, etc...as elitism. Having hiring/firing power and billions at your command? That's not elitism. Knowing things, and saying it out loud - that's the REAL elitism.
  I think that's partly why the "term limits" mantra (and the ageism that often goes with it) is rather annoying. The anti-intellectualism that is typically at root of that is why.
- I’m not sure how accurate I could be on the spot with no resources at my fingertips but she posted this online, I find it more damming that she wouldn’t even verify something so easy to look up online. Why would she just blindly offer up her ignorance when even with as bad as google is these days the first link I get when searching is to the governments national archive website and lists not only their names but their birthdays, no cross referencing even required…

Bet you she claims that the history books have been changed by the Demoncrats
- Or the Jewish space lasers
  
  Firecracker
  
  I see your shwartz is as big as mine. Touché.
- Her flowchart must be Charlie from It's Always Sunny.

smart, mentally stable people never get in to politics and instead find enjoyable work they can be proud of.
- Counterpoint: Bernie
  
  Yes. Edge cases are fun to point out.
- My God, how does such an ignorant, sophomoric, and patently ignorant take have so many upvotes on Lemmy? Some of the most intelligent and kind people I know have gone into politics, but mostly have just been local.
  But even at the top, without even thinking I can point to Obama who went to Harvard law.
  Granted, I agree that politics does not select specifically for intelligence, as mtg among many others prove, but the idea that smart and mentally stable people don't go into politics is just ridiculously stupid.
  
  fine fine. mentally stable people rarely make it big in politics. even local in my region has some sketchy shit going on where nothing gets done about it even after its made public. The seemingly nice politicians that actually care about the people never get voted in here, only the ones that make empty promises and never deliver, or just outright bait and switch.

Every presidential election in my lifetime has had a candidate that has been attacked as "the dumb one" and another that has been attacked as "the smart evil one" (note: the might not be this, but they were attacked as if they were this)
The "dumb one" has won every time.
- Wait! Obama was the dumb one and John McCain the smart? D:
  
  TBF McCain was spot on on Putin in a way that Obama was not.
- I concur, except I didn't get those vibes during Obama v Romney. Who was who then?
  
  There wasn't a "dumb" one in that one. But there was massive hypocrisy from the GOP because Romney is the embodiment of the Elite, while they tirelessly touted Bush Jr as an everydayman ("dumb") while villifying the Elite.
  This was just 4 years later.

That would rule out voting for most Republicans, though. I think the Republican brand is all about not appearing smarter than anyone else - or, better yet, actually being quite stupid and not just having to play stupid - because being smart and knowing things is considered "elitist" by the con base.
They have subverted the definition of elitism to carve out exceptions for the actual elitists, to the point where donnie is considered (by them) to be for the little man, while simultaneously supposedly being a business magnate with billions to his name. Nothing elitist about having billions, and being given half a billion by your father, I guess.
- LOL, that perfectly captures the BS talking point about having an "outsider" instead of an actual expert. I love it!
  I often notice that people that clamor for term limits and for "outsiders" to run government are not pining for outsiders to pilot planes they are on, drill their teeth, fix their roofs, prepare their taxes, defend them in court, and so on.

People no say Marge smart. MARGE SMASH
- Nah. Deeeefinitely pass on Marge.

That should instantly disqualify her from holding office. You should have a basic understanding of American history in order to govern properly, and it's obvious she doesn't know shit about the history of this country despite arrogantly acting like she does.
- I had to pass a civics test to get out of 8th grade. Why is it not required for someone to be a congressperson?
- I don't think the barrier should be "do you know history trivia?' but rather "can you read and understand a wikipedia article?"
  Except that would immediately turn into Jim Crow era literacy tests and be used for evil. You'd want an electorate that cares and a press that asks revealing questions, though.
  
  I mean the Jim crow literacy test thing was used against voters. These are people that are supposed to govern. I kinda draw a distinction there.
  Yes I do believe that voters and the press should be caring more and asking more revealing questions, but media literacy in this country is low, voter involvement is low, and our press is nothing more than arms of the ruling class so they rarely ever ask the necessary questions to allow voters to truly understand who's on the ballot.
  
  I can excuse someone for not knowing details because not everybody is a history major (hell I don't even know who all signed that document), but these people build their whole identity and politics around jingoism, so they better back it up.
  
  We're not talking trivia here. You should know basic history of the country that you govern. If you don't know that, make room for somebody that did pay basic attention in class. These are things that if you don't know them, you can learn them by investing a few days to weeks at most.
- let me ask the major news corps about this
  "have you considered that her being in congress gets us a lot of ad revenue as we write articles about how we read twitter posts? eat shit" - corporate media

The killer bit is apparently she looked up their ages in 1776 and just didn't bother confirming who signed.
From here:
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/signers-factsheet
Yeah, average age was 44.51.
56 people signed it.
Oldest was Ben Franklin at 70.
Youngest were Thomas Lynch Jr. and Edward Ruteledge, both 26.
28 people were under the age of 45.

Yeah, she does strike me as a "Herby Hancock" kind of person.
- I just hear Chameleon start playing in my head.

Who do they think is doing the voting ???

It's at a point where I feel sorry for her but the real losers are those that vote for this moron

It’s going to be an awkward conversation but she is officially off the trivia team. If she thinks I’m switching trains to get to Capital Hill just to lose, she’s got another fact to learn.
- She has, conservatively (ahem), several facts to learn

I thought she would be finished when she was going on about Jewish space lasers. But that is my fault for thinking they would get rid of their jester.
- Your fault for thinking they consider her a jester

Man, B⁶ is such a goddamn embarrassment
- B6?
  
  A hilariously apropos insult leveled at her by a fellow representative whilst calling her out on some hypocrisy a little while ago: bleach blonde bad built butch body
  Alliterative, snappy, and didn’t even have to stoop to the obvious profane jab that would work under that constraint (thus running afoul of chamber decorum rules). Props to Rep Crockett for that. I like to shorten it to B⁶.

I would if any smart people ever ran for office.