In response to the recent story of 56 percent of adults objecting to teaching Arabic numerals to children, one respondent said it’s nothing significant, and it’s just an excuse to feel superior to other people. To which I replied,
Yes, I know I have a problem, thinking I'm superior to ignorant people. It's why I hate Trump supporters. What can I do?
I meant it as a serious question. I have had this problem nearly all my life. I remember coming home from first grade and crying to my mother, “It’s too easy!” The boredom and lack of challenge was terrible. All the praise I got from the teachers for being so smart went to my head, and I thought I was better than the other kids. They didn’t teach humility at my school, or maybe I was a slow learner...socially, anyway.
My school days were in a small town in the Midwest. I used to say I grew up there, but I really didn’t begin to grow up until I left and had been gone for several years. Still, it took a decade to outgrow the pervasive thinking that has more than 60% of the voters in that place supporting Trump. I knew so many profoundly ignorant people there. And I wonder how they could have learned nothing in the last fifty years.
A lot of the men have served in the military. The raised their right hand and swore to defend the Constitution, but hardly any have ever read it or know what it says. The only thing the majority know about the Constitution is the Second Amendment gives them the right to own as many AR-15’s as they want in order to protect themselves from the overreach of the gubmint. And to blow away any neighbor who annoys you too much.
They know socialism is bad, but government is worse. So “Keep your gubmint hands off my Social Security.” Socialized medicine like Obamacare is bad, but the ACA is good. (It’s not socialized medicine, but they don’t know that.)
They know Hitler was bad, but Jews are sneaky. They want to make America great again, like they were in the Fifties when colored people knew their place. I’m not kidding. This is rattling around in the heads of the people who voted for Trump and still support him. Everything bad said about him is fake news provided by the deep state.
These people would live happily under a fascist dictatorship because they essentially have been living under one all their lives. They readily accept a rigid conformity to oppressive norms and ostracize those who won’t line up. They are pro-life because sex is bad and people who engage in it — except with their married partner (meaning a man and a woman) in the dark in the missionary position — should be punished. They are hypocrites, of course, but they vote for whoever supports the hypocrisy most ardently. (Incidentally, three of my high school classmates had abortions, including one preacher’s daughter. And abortions were illegal then.)
I could go on like this about how stupid they are, but you can read more substantive things elsewhere. Chauncey DeVega has a good analysis in Salon on why Trump supporters won’t change. So efforts to be nice to them are not likely to accomplish much except to see them nod their heads and say “Yes, but what about Hillary’s emails?”
In the spring of 2016 my adult son asked me if Trump had a chance. I said I didn’t think he could get more than the 38-40 percent support he had then. He seemed reassured, but he asked “What if Trump wins?” I said, “Then the US is over.” I told him the US has a lot of stupid people. We just have to hope there aren’t too many of them.
At this point it seems that I was probably right. Many think we can go back, and America will be great again — Senate Republicans will make deals, President Biden will win them over with back rubs and charming smiles, and unicorns will run freely everywhere. But I don’t see how the US can recover and go forward unless there is a vast sweep of the Senate next year, and that’s unlikely.
We have Trump because of stupid people. Sure, there were a lot of cynical people who consciously wanted to own the libs and stick it to women and people of color, but they were outnumbered by people who simply don’t know what democracy is and what can sustain a diverse nation into the future. They voted for a conman because they are so easy to con. Many of them get conned out of money they need for substance every Sunday when the collection plate goes around.
I know I’m not above being conned. None of us are. But with our freedom at stake, it shouldn’t be so easy.
So I feel superior to them. What can I do?