In Trumpworld, it's OK to be ignorant

[babylonsister]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article133978969.html

Opinion: In Trumpworld, it’s OK to be ignorant

BY LEONARD PITTS, JR.


It’s time we talked about the most consequential political divide in this country.

That divide is not between liberals and conservatives. Rather, it is between the ignorant and the informed, between those who have information and can extrapolate from it and those who do not and cannot. There is an education gap between left and right, and it poses a grave threat to our national future.

This gap has been empirically proven. A 2015 Pew Research Center study, for instance, found that only 24 percent of Americans with post-graduate degrees and 29 percent of those with college degrees identify as consistently or mostly conservative. The corresponding numbers for liberals were 54 and 44, with the rest not identifying strongly with either ideology.

But empirical proof is superfluous. The truth has been obvious since the knowledge-starved likes of Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Louie Gohmert first became stars of the political right. It has been obvious since Stephen Colbert found it necessary to coin the word “truthiness.”

Now, however, that ignorance has reached the highest levels of American governance. Did The Great Trumpkin really sign an executive order without knowing what was in it? Did he really reportedly have to ask what Vladimir Putin was talking about when the Russian president brought up an arms-control treaty in a phone call? Is his Twitter feed really a blizzard of embarrassing misspellings? Was there really a misspelling in his official inauguration poster? Did his Education Department — repeat: his Education Department — really misspell “W.E.B. Du Bois” and then, misspell its apology? Did he really praise Frederick Douglass, stone cold dead since 1895, as “an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more?”

Sigh. Yes, all of it.

As he has already legitimized coarseness, misogyny and bigotry, the so-called president now legitimizes ignorance.

snip//

The need to fix American education could not be more stark or urgent. We must wrench our local school boards free of partisan political hackery and re-double our efforts to teach our children not what, but how to think. The world is not growing less complex or challenging while we dither about, literally pretending ignorance is bliss.

With apologies to The United Negro College Fund: A country is also a terrible thing to waste.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. My late father, a doctor, used to criticize anyone with an advanced degree.

Used to complain that the country was being run by MBA's and nobody with common sense had any input. It sounded like a Bill O'Reilly program.

Dad's sentiments are now policy apparently.


And not only is ignorance wisdom in a 1984 way, willful ignorance is divine. I have a friend in Israel who recognize anti-Semitism in the U.S. from *both* the rightwing and the leftwing, but he professes that the leftwing is much worse than the rightwing.

[Kath2]

11. Sounds like my father, now in his 80's.

Age has not diminished his anger over anyone not exactly like him. Of course he is a big Trump supporter.

He made my life hell in high school (1973 - 1976). We still speak, but are emotionally estranged.

[no_hypocrisy]

15. I hear ya!

If my father were still alive, I'd be hearing repetitious Trump quotes 24/7 and "Did you hear what Donald Trump said today?"

My father had the last laugh: he disinherited me, my brother, and my sister. But he DID leave $35,000 to the Trump-lover neighbor across the street.

[Kath2]

17. OMG!

I come from the same experience. Trump quotes, Fox news quotes and quaking with rage over black, brown, gay, poor and liberal people. I'll be seeing him tonight for my daughter's birthday. I suspect he will be on good behavior because he knows she is more liberal than me and is way more vocal, too.

BTW, my girlfriend's father disinherited her because she is bi. So nice.

[SharonAnn]

16. Knowing plenty of doctors, with MD degrees, not all have common sense

My father was a doctor and most adult friends were doctors. There were not all blessed with "common sense". But they all thought they were right on every issue.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. With all due respect to your late father

and to all of the doctors out there, it's been my observation that doctors are incredibly likely to believe that just because they have that medical degree they know everything about everything. It's a bit scary. Especially when you consider that the nature of their chosen field is such that while they may very well know an enormous amount about medicine, especially their specific branch of it, they are often likely to be far more narrow in their knowledge than they realize.

[no_hypocrisy]

25. Replying to your (3) replies:

You get it.

I was raised by a man (like Trump) who thought he was smarter than God, often demonstrating poor judgment. I didn't go along with him because poor judgment is poor judgment, and I wasn't born a lemming. To her credit, my sister woke up after our father passed. She used to try to become what she thought he wanted as a perfect daughter, to her ongoing frustration. That created a schism between us.

[Kath2]

2. Even worse.

It is glorified and celebrated.

[tanyev]

3. And viewed with suspicion if you're not.

[tblue37]

9. In "Idiocracy" anyone who knows how to read becomes suspect. nt

[rock]

4. Not only "OK"

But "Mandatory"!

[Paladin]

10. Ya beat me to it! "Mandatory".....and "Scared Shitless." (nt)

[oasis]

5. I nominate Sarah Palin to be the "Make America Ignorant" poster child.

Deplorable nation wallowing in stoopidity (sp).

[Docreed2003]

6. It doesn't take much time in public forums online...

To realize not only are many Trump supporters ignorant of facts, they are willfully so. I had one such supporter suggest that Trump not only wasn't a racist or bigot but that he had never said anything remotely racist/sexist/or bigoted during the campaign. Even when faced with quotes, they were dismissed as quotes take out of context or altered and not truly reflective of Trumps beliefs. That type of pretzel logic will never accept reality, such as Russian/Trump ties. They believe that Dems are just angry over the election and trying to tear Trump down by pushing the Russian angle. When you have a press secretary like Spicer pushing bullshit daily, it only validates their worldview.

[CousinIT]

7. Not even a matter of "can not" get info and extrapolate--but those who CHOOSE not to.

I have relatives who willfully CHOOSE political ignorance. They vote Republican and they voted for TRUMP.

One has a college degree. But he never watches news and pays zero attention to what's going on. He's a misogynist pig who voted for and defends TRUMP whatever he does -- because in HIS opinion, whatever TRUMP does could never any worse than having some WOMAN in the WH. ANY woman. He's MRA and hates women. NO MATTER HOW QUALIFIED.

The other family member is just (chooses to be) politically ignorant. She doesn't look at news on the internet or on the TV nor does she read newspapers. Where does she get her info? From her own ass - her husband - a Republican who decries "socialism" even as he LIVES on it: TriCare, Social Security and before that SSI and a military pension. ALL "socialist" money. Does he send it BACK and refuse to accept this socialism?

NO.

He insists HE needs it. But others? NO, he says. Bunch of illegals all abusing the system and getting all this stuff, he says. HE needs it. My 89-year-old Mom who has been a citizen all her life and all the 89-year-old citizens who are here too and those who will come after them, -- they don't NEED it. But HE does.

Ignorant asses, the lot of them.

And they CHOOSE that. Actively. Willfully.

It's not a matter of CAN'T get info or process it. THEY. REFUSE.

[Cooley Hurd]

8. "Idiocracy" has been re-classified from a comedy to a documentary.

[blue sky at night]

12. Really when you get right down to it...

it is not just O K A Y to be I G N O R A N T but a R E Q U I R E M E N T. There just is no other explanation.

[dalton99a]

13. Pol Pot took this shit to the extreme and executed people who wore glasses

[Augiedog]

14. OK? Hell, its the only qualification

[yallerdawg]

18. "Ignorance is strength."

[dawg]

19. If we're so smart, why do we still lose?

Answer: because we keep trying to reason with people who cannot be reasoned with.

The Republicans are masters at manipulating the voters. They are always willing to "go there" and push whatever buttons it takes to get out their base.

Sadly, we need to learn from that.

And for God's sake, put up a united front from the very first minute our primaries are over.

[dawg]

21. Republicans were willing to defend "Grab 'em by the pussy."

Conservatives have been defending Milo's pedo talk.

And we have a shit-ton of useless mouth-breathers who weren't even willing to defend the Secretary of State for using the "wrong" email server.

[defacto7]

22. I can't give a bigger

K&R than this... but I would if I could.

[alterfurz]

23. "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States...

...and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov

[hvn_nbr_2]

24. Cult of ignorance

This cult of ignorance and of glorifying ignorance is nothing new. I grew up in a very conservative area--4 counties out of 66 in the state voted for Goldwater, and my county was one of the four, so we had quite a few knuckledraggers.

I remember in ninth grade civics class about 1962 or 1963, someone was sure that we are "a Christian nation" and that the constitution is based on God and Christianity. The teacher responded that the word God does not appear in the U.S. Constitution. The knuckledragger was incensed and knew that that was not true. Now, the question of whether the word God appears in the U.S. constitution is an easily tested empirical question, and I tested it by reading the constitution (Hey, it was 1962. We didn't have web-based text search.). But the knuckledragger would have none of that--the cult of ignorance believes that the gold standard for determining truth is this: truth is whatever they want to believe.

[Hoyt]

26. Not only OK, ignorance is a prerequisite.