The New Know-Nothing Party

[MineralMan]

The stupid is strong in many GOP candidates in 2010, and the trend seems to be growing. Starting with Sarah Palin's inability to name a single newspaper she reads regularly and leading up to Christine O'Donnell, who doesn't know the names of any Democratic Senators and can't name a single recent SCOTUS case, the trend for candidates of the teabagger persuasion is to broadcast their ignorance far and wide.

Like Sgt. Schultz, they see nothing, hear nothing, and know nothing. And they're proud of it, by cracky! When they say, "I'm you," they're speaking directly to a constituency that prides itself on its ignorance and willful refusal to correct that ignorance. The intellectually and educationally deficient seem to eat up this deliberate stupidity from candidates and support those candidates vigorously by carrying around misspelled signs and speaking out in a language that only vaguely resembles English.

This is a movement that loudly proclaims its allegiance to the Constitution and the Bible, but has not read either document. It's a movement that watches Fox News and listens to Rush Limbaugh, who flaunt their contempt for the very people who hang on their every word. It is a movement that wants to destroy education, since it has none. It wants to destroy science, since that's too hard for them to understand. It wants to repeal several important Constitutional Amendments, even though it hasn't read and doesn't understand them. It's a movement that seeks to destroy Social Security and Medicare, even though many of its adherents depend on those very programs for their existence.

And here's the weirdest thing of all: This new Know-Nothing Party watches television. They watch it a lot. So the broadcast media caters to them, giving them as much reinforcement as possible for their willful ignorance. After all, they reason, you don't want to alienate your audience. So, they book the moronic, the stupid, and the ignorant on their programs, the better to lure in the Know-Nothing Party members in to buy products from their advertisers. This is why the vapid, overgrown teenager Bristol Palin is on Dancing with The Stars. This is why large segments of news coverage is devoted to the likes of Lindsay Lohan. Bring in the Know-Nothings, the media seem to say. They'll buy any damn thing.

This movement is growing fast, and threatens to overtake the society. Our only hope is, I believe, to turn out intelligent, thoughtful people in even greater numbers to make certain that the Know-Nothings do not gain a serious foothold in government. If we do not, we face a distinct possibility that the new Know-Nothing Party will rise up and destroy everything we've built.

Disclaimer: I do know that this is not the same as the original Know-Nothing Party. Still, in it's nativism, racism, and anti-immigrant thinking, it's also very much the same. Thanks.

[Strelnikov_]

1. "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government . ."

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government;... whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights. - Thomas Jefferson 1789

And, on the other hand, when the people are poorly informed, mislead and/or willfully ignorant . . .

To paraphrase a great sage "What . . we've got here . . is a failure of the media to communicate".

[MineralMan]

2. So it seems, doesn't it?

For me, this is one of the most alarming phenomena I've seen in my lifetime.

[Strelnikov_]

3. I am not as concerned about them taking over

The 'landslide' the media is breathlessly reporting will at most result in narrow Reich majorities in the House and Senate.

I am most concerned about them being a oligarchic version of the 'Monkey Wrench Gang'. That is, stopping any initiatives that do not serve the narrow interests of their Oligarch masters. In other words, nothing gets done.

Problem is, we are at a nexus:

Economic - Heavy metal capitalism as practiced in the US is on its last legs.

Environmental - Climate change due to global warming. Regardless of climate legislation, we are talking trillions in infrastructure spending to mitigate the change already set in motion (Ex. relocating portions of coastal cities, massive relocation/rebuilding of levee systems in places like Des Moines, St. Louis, Kansas City etc. etc.)

Energy - Peak fossil energy is near or here. The longer the societal transformation to sustainability is delayed, the greater the risk of collapse.

With the 'Know Nothings' gumming up the works of efficient, science driven government, collapse is a real possibility.

I have no doubt many Mayans were lamenting the impact of their version of the 'Know Nothings' on what passed for public policy.


As our fifth strand, we have to wonder why the kings and nobles failed to recognize and solve these seemingly obvious problems undermining their society. Their attention was evidently focused on their short-term concerns of enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each other, and extracting enough food from the human peasants to support all those activities. Like most leaders throughout human history, the Maya kings and nobles did not heed long-term problems, insofar as they perceived them.

. . .

Like Easter Island chiefs erecting ever larger statues, eventually crowned by pukao, and like Anasazi elites treating themselves to necklaces of 2000 turquoise beads, Maya kings sought to outdo each other with more and more impressive temples, covered with thicker and thicker plaster, reminiscent in turn of the extravagant conspicuous consumption by modern American CEO's. The passivity of Easter chiefs and Maya kings in the face of the real big threats to their societies completes our list of disquieting parallels.

From Chapt. 5, 'The Maya Collapses', from 'Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed’ by Jared Diamond

[MineralMan]

4. You make some interesting points, although I'm not sure

we have enough knowledge about the Mayan and Easter Island cultures to use them as examples. There are enormous differences between their cultures and our own. There may be similarities, but much of what is written about those old cultures is conjecture, I'm afraid.

[mzmolly]

5. "When they say, "I'm you," they're speaking directly to a constituency that prides itself on its

ignorance and willful refusal to correct that ignorance."

I hadn't thought of it that way. An "Ignorant and proud" movement. Very interesting.