The Runback: Living in Stupid Times
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News and Politics
A Loop Around the Congressional Races: Ruppersburger's retirement scrambles another race
Ficker Fudges Financial Facts: Robin Ficker claims a big fundraising haul. But he's raised very little of it.
Delegate Kris Fair is "Deeply Hurt"...by Biology and Science: Fair made scientifically illiterate remarks during voting session on Thursday
Entertainment(?)
REACTION: Ben Shapiro Rapping....: This is a real thing that happened.....
Candidate Surveys:
The Monday Thought
We live in stupid times. And no, I’m not just talking about the scientifically illiterate Delegate Kris Fair’s comments last week.
But let me tell you a few examples of showing just how stupid the time we are living in is:
Here’s Senator J.D. Vance, who is allegedly an attorney, suggesting that the President of the United States can defy Supreme Court rulings. Guess Vance was absent the day they taught law at law school at Yale.
Donald Trump faces 91 indictments throughout various jurisdictions around the country. It’s all over the news. And yet:
As it turns out, even major developments often fly under the average American’s radar. New polling conducted by YouGov shows that only a bit over half of the country on average is aware of the various legal challenges Trump faces. And among those Republicans on whose political support he depends? Consistently, only a minority say they are aware of his lawsuits and charges.
And why is that? Medio siloing, of course:
It seems very safe to assume this lack of familiarity derives from disinterest in hearing negative information about Trump — and, probably more importantly, the disinterest of conservative and right-wing media outlets to report on them.
Lest you think that it’s only the statist right that has their heads lost in the ether, I present you with this argument put forth by David Frum: that we need to “uncancel Woodrow Wilson”, potentially the worst President the U.S. has ever had. The reasoning? That, despite being a racist and tyrant, Wilson “championed a set of values that our politics sorely lack” namely “self-determination and internationalism”.12
Does any of this make sense? How can a United States Senator truly think that the President of the United States can defy the Supreme Court and get away with it? How can so much of the electorate know so little about the guy who has dominated political discussion in America for nine years? How can people seriously think that Wilson should be championed for internationalism when he was an unrepentant racist3 and sicced the government on the American people in ways that would make Trump squeal? How can Kris Fair think that his anti-woman views are ok all while denying basic biological science?
Maybe there was something to The 5 Basic Laws of Humand Stupidity after all? 4
Stupid times are dangerous times. Multiple wars are festering globally in Ukraine, Israel, Sudan, the Mahgreb, and Yemen, plus a potential Venezuelan invasion of Guyana internationally. Domestically, we have the border crisis, a potential government shutdown (again) in a month, plus the looming specter of a Presidential election where both candidates are old and have lost most of the zip on their fastball.
Wilson’s idea of internationalism was, of course, the League of Nations. The League of Nations pushed the shockingly naive concept of disarmament. A helluva lot of good it did. It made Wilson practically the reason World War II even happened.
My own views on internationalism are extremely complicated.
Wilson was born in Virginia in 1856 and was therefore the only President to grow up in a defeated country.
Remember when the media dunked on Bush for being “stupid”? Remember when the left dunked on Bush for being a “fascist?” Again, that’s how you got Trump, who is too stupid to understand what a fascist is.