Back in 2000 when Al Franken was still working as a prime-time comic, he was part of the election-night team that reported on Bush-Gore for CNN. or maybe it was MS-NBC. I don’t remember which network but I do recall that Franken stood in front of a big map of the United States and as the returns came in and a state went for either Bush or Gore, Franken would point at the particular state, give the results and the state then turned either red or blue.
What I remember most of all about Al’s performance was that whenever a state was called for the Republicans, he would point his marker at the state, it would turn red and he would yell, “another dumb state for Bush.” And this went on all night until it became clear that the victory would go to the winner in Florida where a recount was already being announced, so I went to bed.
I have always kept the image in my mind about how red states equals dumb states because there is no question that Trump’s most rock-solid support seems to come from people who, there’s no other way to say it, are just plain dumb. I know we’re all God’s children, I know that everyone is entitled to believe what they want to believe, but if you really think that Donald Trump is going to impose a 30% tariff on goods coming into this country from Mexico, including a 30% tax on his own clothing brand which happens to be made south of the Rio Grande, I don’t know what else to call you except dumb.
But this brings up an interesting question: Is what Al Franken said in jest back in 2000 possibly true? Are there really state in which if not a majority then at least a sizable minority of residents are really dumb? How do you figure out the dumbness of a population group anyway? I’m going to take a stab.
According to the Department of Education, the percentage of 25-34 y/o Americans with some kind of post-secondary degree stands at somewhere around 38.9. This used to rank us Number 1 in the world, now we sit somewhere around 16th. Of course when the Shlump gets elected he’ll no doubt make us great again and work on improving that number although he may have some difficulty since it reflects cuts in education spending by all those Republican Governors who, like Mike Pence, claim to be his friends. But that’s a minor quibble, here or there.
I took a look at the percentages of 25-34 college grads in the 20 states that the Princeton Consortium says are going to vote for Shlump-o no matter what. And it turns out that exactly five of those states — MT, ND, SD, NE, KS — have a percentage of college graduates higher than the national average, with the other 15 states falling below that line, and a couple, like WV and AR being so low (less than 30%) that there’s nothing else we can say except that they are really dumb. The average for all 20 red states is 35.9, which is roughly 10% below the national score. Which means that the rest of the country, which includes the rock-ribbed blue states plus the states still ‘in play,’ are mostly well above the dumbness line.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m really not impugning anyone who for reasons of genetic luck was simply born with a little less grey matter than what the average person has. I’m also not saying that everyone who lives in one of those 20 dumb states is a dope. Because even in places where Shlump-o will get a majority of the votes there will be sizable numbers of voters, the numbers keep getting larger, of residents who will vote the other way. But there’s something to be said for analyzing the upcoming election this way if only because Shlump’s comments about everything have become so bizarre that anyone with even half a brain has to really stop and ask themselves whether this guy has any idea about what’s going on at all. Which is what makes him dumb, even though he brags endlessly that he’s the smartConsortiumest guy he ever met.