There are a lot of rather depressing findings in this latest Pew knowledge poll, including the fact the while 75% of the public knows that the Republicans 'won" the last election, only 46% know they only won the House of Representatives. I joked before election day that a lot of Tea Partiers were going to be upset to find out that Barack Obama was still president on the day after, but I didn't think it might actually be true.
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The Republican Party and conservative groups have been quite successful over the past 30 years in dumbing down the population. The ignorant are easily led.
Anybody who actually thinks is demonized as an 'elite' and an 'intellectual', one whose 'subversive comments' are dangerous to the country. When I was young they were called 'bleeding hearts', people with a social conscience who believed in the betterment of all Americans not just those who could afford it. People who believed unnecessary wars in far off places were detrimental to the American way of life. People who believed polluting the environment would come back to bite us in the ass.
All that was true 40 years ago is still true today (as we've seen over the past 10 years), and still the ignorant vote against their own interests. In these days of instant communication and easy access to the knowledge of the world, you'd think we'd have become a smarter society but instead we've become even more clueless. A population who believes voting in an election is equivalent to the audience participation on American Idol or Dancing With The Stars.
I believe, at this point, we've crested the hill and are on the down side. The America we knew in the 20th Century will be no longer and we are well on our way to mediocrity or worse. I suggest an epitaph for our national gravestone: "Keep your government hands off my Medicare". It explains it all.
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