Party of the Stupid?

This was a fact that was raised in 2004 and I’m pleased to see a conservative fellow (literally fellow at the American Enterprise Institute) point it out. The entire article,The Vanishing Republican Voter, is a great read and covers much more than the one area I highlight below, but this particular area is what disturbs me most about our current political arena.

“At the same time, conservatives need to ask ourselves some hard questions about the trend toward the Democrats among America’s affluent and well educated. Leaving aside the District of Columbia, 7 of America’s 10 best-educated states are strongly “blue” in national politics, and the others (Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia) have been trending blue. Of the 10 least-educated, only one (Nevada) is not reliably Republican. And so we arrive at a weird situation in which the party that identifies itself with markets, with business and with technology cannot win the votes of those who have prospered most from markets, from business and from technology.”

No party should be the party of the stupid. Since we only have two major political parties, neither should rely upon stupidity to win. That is not helpful in a democracy. I don’t like it when my side wins because of the stupidity of the other side. I would like to be able to hold serious debates about serious issues, such as the inequality divide that this article primarily focuses on, and understand that the end state of both ideologies is nearly identical, it’s how to get there which is under debate. I would like to take all these social issues off the agenda. Same-sex marriage should be a simple no brainer, marriage in a civic sense should be available to any couples wishing to engage in it. Let religions dictate who can marry in their faiths. The abortion debate needs to stop. Don’t like it? Don’t have one. I am sick of these topics dominating the national stage and forcing me to vote for a party to defend my uterus or support my homosexual friends and family members instead of having real debates about the economy, the environment, healthcare, etc. They are noisome distractions designed to sway the “Low Info Voter,” a term I’m just now starting to hear to describe the major demographic that gets their information from shows like The View or Ellen. The right can sneer all they want, but the folks who watch John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and listen to NPR are consistently better informed about the actual events going on in the world than those who watch daytime television talk shows and FOX News.

Speaking of the news shows, it seems Sarah Palin is skipping the Sunday morning circuit immediately following the convention. Very interesting. I wonder which channel she will eventually show up on? I saw an exchange between Chris Matthews (ew) and Pat Buchanan (ew) about this very thing and found myself in the disgusting position of having to agree with Chris Matthews. Pat argued that the McCain campaign didn’t have to make the round of press shows, and while technically he’s right—there’s no law saying he has to—to avoid the mechanism by which the vast majority of the country learns about their nominees for the highest office in the land is despicable in my opinion. It continues the appeal to the stupid, the low-info voter, the barely aware Americans who hear things fourth-hand and pretend they know what’s going on.

BTW, I am not saying that everyone who votes Republican is stupid. I know that many people vote Republican because they deeply disagree with the path Democrats want to take. But if the majority of the Republican base is the least educated in this country, then that will make it the party of the stupid, even if it retains a minority of educated elites that run it.