The lack of capacity for critical thinking among some of the American electorate is nothing new. The French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville famously noted it in the late 1830s in the two volumes of his book, Democracy in America. Almost 130 years later, the American historian Richard Hofstadter remarked upon it in two of his works from the early 1960s, Anti-intellectualism in American Life, and The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Both of Hofstadter’s works still apply today in complementary fashion as the 2020 election nears and Clueless Leader and his cult followers on the far right drop in greater and greater numbers off the edge of reality into the realm of psychotic fever dreams.
Mike Caulfield’s “Four Moves and a Habit” method for the detection of Fake News online. Infographic created by Shonnmharen.
The great difference between now and the early 1960s, when Hofstadter wrote about the propensity of some people for ignoring facts that didn’t fit their world view, is that those people now have access to the internet and to social media, where they can spread their diseased notions like a contagion. Rumors that once took days or weeks to spread, and in the process may have fizzled out when confronted by facts, now spread in minutes and hours in a continuous onslaught that drowns outs facts. For those too intellectually lazy to engage in critical thinking, there has never been a better time for finding spurious rumors to prop up their dangerously bonkers ideas.
Most of the rumor mongering conspiracy theorists with dangerously bonkers ideas are now, and have always been, on the far right of the American political spectrum. It’s an ongoing feature of American life that the ruling class demonizes the far left because they rightly suspect the far left would overturn the cushy lifestyle of the ruling class if they could, and to help them turn the focus of hatred and suspicion upon the far left the ruling class has always had willing allies, or rather dupes, among the far right. Useful idiots.
These are the kind of people who adhere to QAnon conspiracy theories about the evil character of Democrats and Antifa partly out of credulity since they want to believe the stories, and partly because it titillates them that most reasonable adults, and particularly liberals, are outraged and appalled by the stories. For a third of the American electorate, an incapacity for critical thinking is displayed as a badge of honor, not of shame.
Too many right wing delusionists are willing, even eager, to use violence when they don’t get their way. In this they are aided and abetted by the ruling class, who use them as a cudgel against the far left and anyone else who questions the established capitalist order. Terrorism in this country has almost always come from the far right, not the far left, and for nearly four years now the current president has winked and nodded at right wing terrorists in this country. He has filled a powder keg with dangerous fantasies and then recently lit the fuse with his call out to right wing terrorists ahead of the election.
A sketch from a January 1979 episode of Second City Television, starring Andrea Martin, Catherine O’Hara, and Dave Thomas. In 2016, 52% of white women voted for the Republican presidential candidate, someone who would be incapable of understanding this SCTV sketch as satire.
For Richard Hofstadter in his examination of American history there have been breakdowns in what may be considered the consensus of political views reconciling economic and cultural differences (though he himself chafed at being lumped with the post World War II era “consensus” historians), but only one failure of consensus, and that led to the Civil War. Perhaps hope can be found in the realization that the truly dangerous right wing terrorists in this country are fewer in number than they would have everyone else believe. If the current president somehow gains four more years in power, however, that glimmer of hope may go dark because more violent reactionaries will become ever more emboldened, growing their numbers to become a visceral threat, sinister and close.
— Vita
A doctor made it his regular habit to stop off at a bar for a hazelnut daiquiri on his way home. The bartender knew the doctor’s habit and would always have a drink waiting. But one day the bartender ran out of hazelnut extract, so he substituted hickory nuts. When the doctor arrived, he took a sip and exclaimed, “This isn’t a hazelnut daiquiri!”
“No, I’m sorry,” the bartender replied. “It’s a hickory daiquiri, Doc.”
A Lifebuoy Soap advertisement that appeared in a 1902 edition of the periodical Animal Life and the World of Nature: A Magazine of Natural History.
No one with any amount of sense can possibly take seriously the quack nostrums for coronavirus floated by the Snake Oil Salesman-in-Chief at the propaganda rallies and petty grievance sessions otherwise known as his press conferences. And it’s difficult to feel sympathy for those of his cult followers foolish enough to swallow his advice along with his every word, as mean-spirited and spiteful as are the words spewed and the behaviors exhibited by many of them. The ones who deserve our sympathy when they gullibly believe the irresponsible suggestions made by Clueless Leader are the naive, the innocent, and the truly stupid.
Who could have imagined a time when the national leader of this country would behave so irresponsibly that children and the mentally incompetent members of the populace should be shielded from him lest they act upon his remarks and harm themselves, and possibly others. It’s not just his medically unqualified suggestions for attacking the coronavirus that can lead people astray, but things he has said in the past encouraging violence and continues to say to this day. He is a threat to public health and well-being on many fronts.
There is a long history of quacks and snake oil salesmen having their moments of holding a portion of the public within their spell, and that will surely continue because enough people are willing to believe almost anything, and to back up their beliefs with their money. To have such nonsense emanating from the leader of a wealthy, powerful nation, however, is dangerous and disheartening, even sickening. Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil may be morons, and they are certainly capable of giving bad medical advice in the interest of bettering their television audience ratings and swelling their pocketbooks and egos, but neither of them is capable of swaying a significant minority of the populace to hit the streets in an armed insurrection, or to swallow or inject poisons. That kind of influence has always been exercised by cult leaders, and not by mere quacks or by responsible national leaders.
— Vita
