The Party Of Stupidity

 Look, I know we Coastal Elites(tm) aren't supposed to look down our noses at the salt of the earth Real Muricans of the Heartland. 

But come the fuck on.

A basic level of intelligence is the ability to form new opinions in the face of new evidence. Like...that's the fundamental goal of education. Can you change your mind? As Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Let's take two examples that are only tangentially related to the Former Guy.

First, Tennessee - a state that once elected people like Al Gore to the Senate - has decided that the proper response to a global pandemic is to...stop ALL required vaccinations. I'm currently reading a book on the American Revolution, and the biggest killer of all during the war was smallpox. You know why no one gets smallpox anymore? Because of vaccines. Same with the measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus...vaccines are arguably the greatest invention in the history of medicine. Bigger, perhaps, than antibiotics. 

The GOP wants to reduce the efficacy of the most important public health tool we have for reasons that can only be described as stick-your-tongue-in-a-socket-to-see-what-electricitry-tastes-like stupid.

On a more typical note, we have Stephen Moore. The vast number of positions Republicans take - including the example above - are examples of Cleek's Law (Republicans believe the opposite of what Democrats believe, updates every 15 minutes) and are therefore inherently negative. The GOP defines it's positions simply by opposing other positions. However, there is one "positive" belief that Republicans have. One policy that they believe for its own sake, rather than simply because it is in opposition to things Democrats want - like vaccinations or climate change legislation or helping people get health care or building infrastructure - is cutting taxes for the very rich.

Stephen Moore has spent his entire adult life as an apostle in the cult of tax cuts for the rich. And he has been spectacularly wrong. His record of wrongness is so extensive and well-documented that it's frankly a little embarrassing to read aloud.

When a political movement is effectively bereft of ideas, it ceases to be vital. It becomes, instead, the entity we have now: an empty shell for the machinations of a career con-artist and narcissist.