Reading the right wing pundits, you'd think that being intelligent was a capital offense. I won't pull quotes for you, but I'm sure if you've bothered to read anything written by Coulter, O'Reilley, et al., you've seen, oh, a kind of
anti-intellectual drift.
And who can blame them when anti-intellectualism sells so well that it actually helped elect a President? (Or to be more precise, get him close enough that a "supreme" anti-intellectual could put him over the top).
I don't suppose you'd be surprised to find that anti-intellectualism is current Republican education policy? Have a gander at this quote from Karl Rove:
"Take a look at our agenda," Rove said. "Education. This year we picked up seven points in the suburbs over '96. Our education plan allows us to make further gains in the suburbs. It will also allow us to make gains with Hispanics and African-Americans. The tax cuts will make the economy grow. As people do better; they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing."
Karl Rove from New Yorker article, "Bush's Trillions" by Nicholas Lemann Issue Feb 19 & 26 2001. Reprinted in "The Best American Political Writing 2002" ed. Royce Flippin. [itallics mine; with thanks to Ed Duemler for finding this quote.]
Since at least the early part of the 20th Century a tension has existed between, in classic terms from the election of 1952, "eggheads" and "the people". Maybe I don't need to tell you that, since then, the Democratic party has always been allied with the eggheads. If we have any sense of history at all, we will be very familiar with the times we find ourselves in now. ( If you want to know more about this era, read the 1964 Pulitzer Prize winning, and still excellent book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter.)
It only takes a moment's thought to realize that our society couldn't function without smart, educated people - the kind of people that Karl Rove thinks have gotten "too much of a good thing." In fact, equal access to quality education is really a national value, and for good reason.
So where does this drive toward anti-intellectualism really come from? Hmm.
Think for a second about another political fact that is in the news this month. Governor Dean won the money race in the Democratic party by raising 14.8 million dollars, more than any other Democratic candidate ever has in one quarter. He did it with small donors, raising an average of $73.69 from 168,533 people. Contrast this to the numbers given by the Bush campaign for a shock. (If you like making logical leaps, you might consider that the party that draws it's financial support from more people would be the party of "the people.")
You really only need to follow the money. It appears, alas, that Big Business doesn't want you getting too smart, or you might actually think about progressive taxation. (And that would be "class warfare" - but that's a subject for another post.)
COULD IT BE that the Republicans have found out that if you repeat something often enough, it becomes conventional wisdom? They've spent half a century branding Democrats as "out of touch effete snobs," and the charge resonates with the people even against their own interests. So maybe it's time to start using Republican strategies against them. If Democrats are eggheads, Republicans are ___? (please fill in the blank).