Building a Nation of Know-Nothings

[depakid]

Having shed much of his dignity, core convictions and reputation for straight talk, Senator John McCain won his primary on Tuesday against the flat-earth wing of his party. Now McCain can go search for his lost character, which was last on display late in his 2008 campaign for president.

Remember the moment: a woman with matted hair and a shaky voice rose to express her doubts about Barack Obama. “I have read about him,” she said, “and he’s not — he’s an Arab.”

McCain was quick to knock down the lie. “No, ma’am,” he said, “he’s a decent family man, a citizen.”

That ill-informed woman — her head stuffed with fabrications that could be disproved by a pre-schooler — now makes up a representative third or more of the Republican party. It’s not just that 47 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.

Take a look at Tuesday night’s box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate.

Yet a president’s birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. A growing segment of the party poised to take control of Congress has bought into denial of the basic truths of Barack Obama’s life. What’s more, this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.

The Democrats may deserve to lose in November. They have been terrible at trying to explain who they stand for and the larger goal of their governance. But if they lose, it should be because their policies are unpopular or ill-conceived — not because millions of people believe a lie.

More: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/building-a-nation-of-know-nothings/?hp

[geckosfeet]

1. Rec'd just for the subject line.

Agree with the sentiment in the blog post but I wonder why so much focus on entertainers like limpy and his ilk? They are entertainers. As such, they do not deserve a proper place in political discourse. They have discredited themselves continuously - as the blog post indicates - by repeatedly making inaccurate statements and spreading misinformation. They also encourage the uninformed, low information public to accept their misstatements as fact by misrepresenting themselves as news reporters.

The democrats fail to shun, alienate and distance themselves from these people. Instead they try to work with them (bipartisanship? laugh track here) and deal with them as adults - as friendly adversaries with whom they have common interests but differences of opinion. The democrats are wrong. And that's why they may lose in November.

As the columnist writes -

It’s one thing to forget the past, with predictable consequences, as the favorite aphorism goes. But what about those who refuse to comprehend the present?

[The Wizard]

2. The real problem is

the Republicans own the major media outlets, and the Democrats are fearful of sticking a finger in their collective faces.
Pox News blatant propaganda gives the corporate media cover. The corporate media has a right wing slant and Pox's blatant Nazi propaganda gives the crooks the opening they need to influence elections in the form of news broadcasts that are more subtle forms of right wing propaganda.
At least the citizens of the defunct Soviet Union knew they were being bullshitted. Too many Americans are victims of the great dumbing down and susceptible to lies. They are victims of their own ignorance. Ignorance isn't bliss. It's a threat to democracy.

[Duppers]

4. +100

That's it in a nutshell.

[Martin Eden]

3. "a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies"

That's a HUGE part of it. Every legitimate journalist who covers these issues should be making it a top priority to set the record straight as long as a significant chunk of the public is misinformed.

Maddow and Olbermann and Stewart are insufficient to dispel the lies.

[Hydra]

5. "Maddow and Olbermann and Stewart are insufficient to dispel the lies."

No, they aren't- they're just being shouted down with the WH's blessing.

The "Professional Left" as it were.

We wouldn't be having this problem AT ALL if our own party were doing the jobs they signed up for with us.