To be mentally dull, uneducated and uninformed is sad. More sadly, these maladies infect some 75% of the populace. To not be self aware & KNOW one suffers from all this..?....disastrous! This horror is magnified by the internet/social media. One stooge is now like a wild cancer cell, metastasizing in the computer-sphere. It is at this place we find ourselves today.
The internet has convinced the ignorant and uneducated they possess essential information and valid positions on all manner of issues. They use social media to rapid-fire at each other, into the echo-chamber of the uninformed. Media outlets, seemingly legitimate, fan the flames and validate the idiocy. Catastrophic!
These malignant, hapless creatures know almost nothing of substance about basic government policy, world events, history, geography, science, constitutional democracy, law, education, finance, health care, insurance, transportation or international relations. No matter!...unencumbered by facts, they hold, often belligerently, bold opinions in these subject areas!
Provided with a globe and a pin, most of them couldn’t stick the pin in Ukraine. Fewer still could construct a coherent paragraph about the Soviet Union vis a vis Ukraine. Many have never actually read a novel. 20% of them are functionally illiterate, don’t read newspapers or actual news outlets—CANNOT do so, really. They do not have passports and have not traveled internationally—-or even traveled significantly in North America. Sadly, 85% of them couldn’t even give you a couple sentences describing (or even naming) the three branches of our government or tell you what they do. Rampant stupidity. They are victims of our educational system breaking down, over the past 50 years. I suppose.
Out upon this depressing wasteland, a traveler in a dangerous land of loons, I encountered a militant Trump dullard. He gleefully proclaimed “……TRUMP 2020”! Trump is keeping his promises! Trump is a master of draining the SWAMP! He blasted me, asserting that the House Impeachment Hearings are a Democratic HOAX! A “set up” to “unseat a duly elected president”!! The courts are “a joke”! The “government is a joke”! The witnesses are all snowflakes; Obama holdovers working against Trump! They are “never Trumpers”!. He was a gushing font of strong opinions!
All of the opinions, unfortunately, ranged from complete nonsense to patent untruth.
I told him that those things he was saying were not factual. I explained I was pretty well up on our foreign policy issues in Ukraine. I had lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union. I understood the desire of Ukraine to come into the European fold. It became obvious he had no idea what I was talking about. I had watched the testimony, stayed involved in the process, listened carefully to the witnesses, evaluated their backgrounds and motivations, and juxtaposed their testimony against each other —AND against opposing information, to assemble an analysis of the allegations and truth of the matter.. I suggested the facts were so clear that even Republicans had stopped disputing the substance. He dismissed my conclusions, based on his own.
He then proudly & freely admitted he had not actually watched any of the hearings. Nor had he read the NYT, LA Times, watched Reuters, BBC, Newsy, McClatchy…, or seen any replays of the hearing testimony. He said he “listened to the radio at work.” No…he didn’t actually know who the witnesses had been. Could not name even one. He knew nothing of their position(s), affiliation(s) , background(s), qualification(s). It was jaw-dropping. He did not know what they had said, nor was he aware that they were largely Trump appointees… or that many were people who had served for decades, under Republican and Democratic administrations, in non-partisan career service.
Despite my revelations, he was undaunted. He believed what he believed and it didn’t matter what the facts were. I was a snowflake.
From this enthusiasts’ “profile”-it was pretty easy to discern he possessed no particularized knowledge, and no educational exposure beyond going to high school. He had no professional affiliation with courts, government, law, foreign policy or politics. He is apparently some kind of beer salesman. He was almost completely ignorant of what was actually going on at the hearings. Pretty clearly, he was grossly misled about what Trump was “accomplishing”, or how he was somehow cleaning the swamp! (Unless, of course, this refers to the scores of Trump confidante’s, cabinet or associates who have been indicted, investigated or convicted since this fiasco presidency began—one supposes this has cleaned things up a bit).
He listened to radio commentators and that is where he learned the hearings were a sham. He believes Trump stands for “America First”—but when confronted with the facts that “America” is falling far far behind the First World in education, health care, infrastructure, life-expectancy, civil rights, transportation, quality of life, populace happiness… he was disinterested. He actually wasn’t sure what “America First” meant, except I guess it seemed to have a good ring to it.
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