The Great State of Dumb

Throughout history, humans have been capable of astonishing feats of invention, art, and science. They have also been capable of using their 86 billion brain cells to wage wars over pastries and an ear, to deplete natural resources until land no longer supported them, and to make a lot of astonishingly bad reality shows. Humans are, if nothing else, creative in all kinds of ways

Unless you have been stuck dangling helplessly from a zipline for the past six years, you have probably been aware that, for no reason anyone can figure out, a lot of upstanding American-type folks have been embracing Stupid, with all their hearts and souls. This has been facilitated by a belief that science does not exist, that truth is as stretchable as saltwater taffy, and that the Second Amendment allows citizens to threaten the US government at will.

LBL believed she was pretty up to date on Stupid, but then she returned from Turkey and was assaulted by even more evidence of Stupid dumped onto the slagpile of what constitutes the US of A.

Herschel Walker, former NFL star and current GOP nominee for the US Senate from Georgia, and self-declared top 1%-of-the-class graduate of the U of Georgia, is a man whose brain and mouth have never been formally introduced to each other, and is therefore chock full of unique observations. One is “Science said man came from apes and if that is true then why are there still apes?” and “A lot of money is going into trees. Don’t they know we have enough trees?” Walker also has a lock in the lie department. Walker is running against Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, who is also a senior preacher at Ebenezer Baptist Church, MLK’s church. As of today, Warnock is only five points ahead of Walker.

In Pennsylvania, Republicans nominated a Jan. 6 insurrection supporter, state Sen. Doug Mastriano for the job of governor. Mastriano, a retired Army colonel, has been described as a “Christian Nationalist.” The three tenets of his belief system are Trump, the Big Lie, and his being chosen by God to run for office. His opponent, Democrat Josh Shapiro, current Pennsylvania Attorney General, has been doing a good job and has been, thus far, staying clear of scandal. The two are now in a fairly close race to become Pennsylvania’s next governor.

There’s an entire Rogue’s Gallery of GOP candidates, using all of their energy to out-Trump and out-Stupid each other, as their ticket to political fame and fortune. We’ll leave these for the moment and focus on another area of Stupid: Any number of Man-on-the-Street questions continues to affirm that many Americans don’t know the difference between a city, a state, a country and a continent. They don’t know the two oceans that border the US. They are clueless about current events. They don’t know how our government works. They believe Facebook is a great source of news. They look for leaders to tell them who to hate, who to fear, who is taking the money they worked hard to earn, who is to blame for whatever they lack in our lives. The list goes on and on, spiraling us ever higher on the Stupid Meter.

A teacher at a California middle school was removed after telling students that Donald Trump is still president. The teacher also claimed President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was having sexual intercourse with his own niece. And yesterday, Lizzo, a truly insanely talented and popular singer, played James Madison’s 200 year old crystal flute at a concert in DC. To explain the significance of the flute she said, “James Madison had to leave his house because of a fire. The only things he took were a portrait of George Washington and this crystal flute.” She didn’t bother to explain who James Madison was or that the “house” was the White House or that it was burning because the British attacked us during the War of 1812. She tooted on the flute and announced that “History is freaking amazing.” Uh huh, yes, real cool.

To be fair to Stupid, it can be comforting. It’s the little night light in the dark bedroom. As long as the night light shows us a small part of the room, it has us believe that the entire room, filled with countless unknowns that we can’t see, is safe. It’s a hell of a lot easier than examining the entire room in daylight. If we did, we might discover that we have been lax in our housekeeping or that we have overstuffed closets some really embarrassing stuff in drawers that should have been tossed. Or worse, it might reveal that the monsters we fear don’t exist, and that we, alone, have created them.