I wanted to do a piece on stupidity as a pillar of Fascism. So I went to the right's effort to rehabilitate Hitler, the National Review and Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism blog, an all-you-can-eat-buffet of stupid. Lo and behold we have this gem of weaseling stupidity:
Was Hitler Racist?
I'm not sold. Hitler was very inconsistent about lots of things, but he was certainly a consistent anti-Semite, which makes him consistently racist in at least one sub-category of racism. I don't think anti-Semitism is necessarily racist.
Clean up on aisle 3 indeed. But we'll come back the question of stupidity and Jonah.
For now let's move to the larger question:
What is it that makes this sort of stupidity a requirement for movement conservatives?
Why was it that the dumber Palin acted, the more she was adored? A preening beauty queen, she pretended not to read anything! Not even her own reviews? Not even Highlights at the pediatricians office?
Why is Fox News an avalanche of bs only an idiot could believe? Why does the right develop their cult of personality around people that seem to be short on personality and even lighter on brains?
Nobody is really that stupid are they? OK, some of them are that stupid, but not all movement conservatives aren't quite as stupid as they pretend to be. They feed themselves, they learn to drive, some of them even graduated from college, so they are smarter than they let on.
In their elaborate displays of stupidity, they behave like underachieving teens - they refuse to do their homework, they shrug off questions, they under-perform, and they laugh at the frustration of the rest of us. Isn't that the Bush administration in a nutshell?
Psychologists call this under-performing "pseudostupidity." So why is this a requirement of movement conservatives?
Movement conservatives are authoritarians, and at the root of authoritarianism is the need to dominate others. Psychologists describe this as a form of sadism. Sadism and masochism are usually seen in the same person, and authoritarians show their masochism in their craving for submission to a Great Leader and their cults of personality.
We can sum up the relationship of pseudostupidity and sadism in two words "Torture works." You can stay up all night arguing with torture supporters, but you'll never hear one say that they've changed their mind on the issue. Pseudostupidity is an emotional defense, and it is much more basic part of the personality than mere logic.
But how does this mixture of sadism and masoschism relate to pseudostupidty and underachieving? Consider the case of an a girl who develops anorexia in response to being abused. She fails to thrive, and there is masochism in how she hurts herself, but there is also sadism in the pleasure she gets from seeing her parents beg her to eat. She seems to not understand that she is endangering herself, and starving herself is a form of underachieving.
The underachieving rebellious child is not just a metaphor for the pseudostupid authoritarian. It goes without saying that the child who is raised by an authoritarian parent (who may be abusive or spoiling), is likely to grow up to be an authoritarian. And in the authoritarian adult we see the childish rebelliousness against authority mixed with a sadistic need to dominate.
Bush43 himself is a notorious underperformer who bragged that he let people "misunderestimate" him, and even though he gave very sign of being a dullard, he got most of his agenda passed. As Daniel Froomkin notes, Bush's response to critics was a barrage of idiocy
(he) refused to respond to their actual arguments and chose instead to refute his own preposterous misrepresentations of what they were saying.
His agenda was sadistic in its authoritarianism, and its embrace of torture is nakedly sadistic. Indeed, if there is an issue that defines and unites movement conservatives today, it seems to be their enthusiastic support of torture as policy and as entertainment on "24."
For an example of an authoritarian that is a masochist, think of David Vitter (or don't think of him, it's OK) an authoritarian who likes to wear a diaper and be humiliated by prostitutes. There's an example of an authoritarian whose masochism (infantilism) makes it plain as day that these issues go back to his relationship with his parents. And the funny thing is that other conservatives are pretty much OK with it, because that's just how they roll.
Hitler was also an underachiever who was not a dumb guy. And what he figured out was that propaganda needed to be stupid. The content hardly even mattered, but what seemed to work best was the standard crap that pushes the buttons of conservatives - secrecy, paranoia, confusion, shifting the blame, and singling out scapegoats. Expanded to a national propaganda campaign, it was a seamless transition to blame minorities and the powerless for the countries failures rather than the people in charge. Hitler's message was stupid, but he was very upfront that stupid propaganda is good propaganda, and that it was not meant for intelligent people.
For adults, stupidity is a form of denial that is a useful defense against the world and all sorts of information that would make them uncomfortable. Global warming? Hey egghead, it was cold this morning! And Al Gore is a Nazi! Deficit? Dude Bush reduced the deficit! Tax cuts will balance the budget!
Pseudostupidty even works as a legal defense for the rest of the torture enablers. Alberto "I do not recall" Gonzales seemed to be auditioning for Flowers For Algernon with his portrayal of an idiot man-child. Even Bill "the definition of 'is'" Clinton got good mileage out of this strategy. But the Bush administration chose to build it's castle in the middle of a vast swamp of stupidity that could swallow the attacks any enemy. It had an army of doggedly stupid quislings like Monica Goodling who seemed not be using as stupidity as a defense, but as lifestyle. For the authoritarian enablers of torture, pseudostupidty is a basic personality trait.
And this is why stupidity is a requirement for their leaders - they promise not only to never challenge the base. They promise pleasure; pleasure in sadism, pleasure in attacking others, pleasure in hatred, and pleasure in masochism. But maybe the real motivations are merely financial - if you are relentlessly stupid dolt, then you can run a federal agency! Or you can be a pundit on Fox news!
And on the internet, this stupidity is like a dinner bell. By their stupidity they know each other, and they will try to take over unmoderated web sites. "Al Gore uses more electricity than Reno Nevada! Obama is a Kenyan! Obama is a Liberal Fascist."
Pseudostupidity is how these people find each other. It's a code: "Hey, I use neurotic defenses! My mind is closed, and I am an underachiever. I am an authoritarian and a sadist! I support torture. If you want to me hate gays today and blacks tomorrow and Al Gore the day after that, I'll bellow whatever stupid slogan you feed me. Sign me up! I look good in brown. Let's go beat up some faggots!"
To outsiders, their gibberish is mystifying. It's is like stumbling into a creepy online dating site where people use acronyms you've never heard of and you can't quite figure out what these people are into and then you click a link and realize "Oh my God, that's David Vitter!"
But let's return to Jonah Goldberg. Fabulously stupid? Yes. Attracting people that use the same talking points as the Nazis? Yes. Attracting a base of torture supporters? You betcha!