We Are All With Stupid
by Josh K-sky on Dec.14, 2009, under Politics
I have no more patience for complaints about the stupidity of the electorate. Stupidity can mean a great number of things. Innocence, credulousness, parochialism, and lack of education (or even political interest) all fall under the category of stupidity when we talk about other voters besides ourselves. Neither party can win without stupid people. For those whom the sad facts of birth, environment or fortune have left stupid, Democrats should have compassion.
No, our problem is with asshole voters, who make up a solid section of the Republican base. They are our enemies. We must ever seek to defeat them, except for a slim margin whom we must work to convert, not by playing to their assholishness, but to the better angels of their natures.
Blaming the stupid for political problems is weak sauce, and John Emerson makes this point at greater length and depth:
Unless you regard everyone without at least a master’s degree as stupid, the facts do not justify the Democratic or progressive disparagement of stupid voters. In 2008 high school dropouts were Obama’s best educational demographic at 63%. Voters with advanced degrees were next best at 58%, with HS graduates and those with some college giving Obama respectively 52% and 51% of their votes. At 50%, college graduates without advanced degrees were Obama’s worst demographic. Thus, when people talk about “stupid voters” what they’re really talking about is an internal split within the most-educated 28.8% of the population — between those with BAs and BSs and those with MAs and PhDs.
This illuminates two clichés of American political debate: first, the “elitist Democrat” idea, and second, the culture wars. Those who most resent the elite Democrats are themselves college graduates, and as Gelman recently has recently shown, the culture war is a split within the more prosperous and better-educated class, and not a split between educated liberals and ignorant conservatives. Democrats often speak of the religious right as hillbillies and trailer trash, but they’re more likely to be well-off, complacent college graduates.
10 Comments for this entry
1 Trackback or Pingback for this entry
-
Let’s stop saying ‘retarded’ - Joshua Malbin
May 3rd, 2011 on 11:12 am[...] that your problem is not with stupid people. As I’ve specified on the subject of politics, your problem is with assholes. (Occasionally I find the word ‘asshole’ too breathy for invective and often too [...]
December 14th, 2009 on 7:12 am
“Unless you regard everyone without at least a master’s degree as stupid…”
Sorry. You’ve already lost me. I include most of those with a master’s degree, also.
I mean, point taken: the bigger problem is with assholes rather than idiots. Okay. And I’ll further grant that it would be a very good thing to have compassion for the stupid. But I think such compassion is supererogatory. And that while we craft our strategies – rightly necessary – for getting the stupid to pull our levers (heh heh), it’s okay to be simultaneously contemptuous. You can, after all, pull my disdain from my cold, dead rolling eyes.
December 14th, 2009 on 9:58 am
BTW, had you looked at the latest IOZ prior to your apologia of stupidity?
“The problem is not that they are idiots, although idiots are certainly well-represented in the upper echelons of our lategreat empire, but that they’re bastards.”
http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2009/12/name-of-hose.html
December 14th, 2009 on 10:22 am
I would never attempt to shake you out of your contempt, JHP, but you seem to keep it in a mostly separate box from your assignment of political blame.
December 14th, 2009 on 4:49 pm
Curiously enough I find Democrats and the left more than adequately represented in the “well-off, complacent college graduates” demographic.
December 15th, 2009 on 1:30 am
Well, no one’s disputing that. It’s just that the right isn’t any different. It gets cast as righteous working man vs dissipated elites, but it’s really jet skis vs. Putumayo, and everyone drinks lattes.
December 15th, 2009 on 5:18 pm
Awwww, I was all excited by the title and opening paragraph, then you hitched your wagon on people’s assumption that stupidity varies with educational attainment. Come on, you went to enough community college to go beyond that.
When I’m bitching about the stipudity of the electorate, it’s based on this kind of generic exchange (choose your polling to back up the positions), which cuts across party and educational demo…
Electorate: NO MORE TAXES, CUT EVERYONE’S TAXES, LIKE… IN HALF! YA, USA!
Interviewer: OK, well if you’re cutting a lot of revenue, what should the government not be doing?
E: WELFARE FRAUD!
I: Well, fraud costs are actually pretty low. But if you cut entitlement programs entirely, that’s only about 10%.
E: OH. AND THE DMV. BASTARDS.
I: OK, that would actually cost more revenue than it saves, but I’ll go with you. How about cutting back a little on something big? Like the biggest item, the military?
E: NO, THAT’S MY #1 PRIORITY. U-S-A!
I: Education? That’s most of the state budget.
E: THAT’S MY OTHER #1 PRIORITY.
I: Police? Public safety?
E: HELL NO, I DON’T EVEN FEEL SAFE NOW. HIRE MORE COPS! WHAT IF WE HAVE ONE PER HOUSE?
I: How abou-
E: IS CRIME RISING? I THOUGHT I FELT SOMETHING.
I: Firefighters?
E: NO! EXCEPT IF I LIVE IN SAN DIEGO. THEN SOMEONE ELSE WILL DO THAT.
I: Prisons… did you know it costs more to send a person to prison than Harvar–
E: BUILD MORE PRISONS! STEEERIKE THREE! CUT HARVARD.
I: You said you want smaller government, but when we look at the specifics, it sounds like you actually want MORE. Maybe this is why we run a huge deficit and rack up trillions in debt?
E: OH MY GOD, BALANCE THE BUDGET. HOW CAN WE DO THIS TO OUR CHILDREN? WHAT WILL THE BORROW AGAINST?
I: We could cut Medicare?
E: WELL…NO
I: Social Security?
E: IT’S BANKRUPT.
I: Well, no, it’s projected to go into debt in about 30 years, but if you don’t expect it to be there, can I ask if you have other savings for retirement?
E: YOU MEAN ON MY CREDIT CARD?
I: No, I mean how do you plan to fund your retirement?
E: I’LL BE RICH WHEN YOU JUST CUT MY TAXES.
December 15th, 2009 on 5:42 pm
Fair enough. But I’m not holding up your college education as evidence that you must be evil rather than stupid.
December 15th, 2009 on 6:18 pm
I so ♥ Dan.
December 15th, 2009 on 6:25 pm
We all ♥ Dan. We’ll see how drunk I need to get him on NYE.
December 16th, 2009 on 10:10 am
It’s probably important to have “suckers” in the taxonomy, now that health reform is going to include the mandatory transfer of wealth from individuals to health care corporations without the threat of competition from the public. Woo hoo community rating.