Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   11/25/2014

Electoral stupidity or conservative intellectual superiority

Before providing readers with some hopefully refreshing candor and critical analysis of Mr. Obama’s (or, by his own admission, Emperor Obama’s) fiat approach to creating new immigration laws and policies, I’d like to revisit what Jonathon Gruber described as “the stupidity of the American voter.” By the way, I’ve seen next-to-nothing on the devastating (to Obamacare) revelations—Gruber’s assertions—on mainstream network news (MSM). A slight mention on CBS, a literal blackout on NBC and ABC, and minimalist coverage by the Associated Press, has been pretty much it. Last week’s column had more revelations than all MSM on “Gruber-gate.”

Conservative blogger Jim Treacher provided this appropriate quote: “Modern journalism is all about deciding which facts the public shouldn’t know because they might reflect badly on Democrats.” Hence, the Democrat/MSM complex deigns to categorize as “stupid” that part of the American electorate that has somehow formed convictions and opinions contrary to the delivered wisdom and narratives of the Beltway elite. When Gallup announces a “New numerical low” for Obamacare—yet another polling data point of rejection of the program conceived, promoted and legislated through massive deception and false promises—the political and media upper class simply assign mental deficiency to the obstinate populace.

A 2004 book by Thomas Frank, “What’s the Matter With Kansas,” is informative on why the liberal elites have such condescension toward the center-right voting majority. Look it up on Wikipedia.org by title and you will find the theme that allows the intellectual left to dismiss the firmly-held sentiments of such Americans: Their true best interests are served by the programs and policies of the establishment progressive movement. Meanwhile, conservative leaders try to distract those same Americans from that reality by creating liberal “bogeymen” and villains ever determined to make life harder for otherwise free people.

Get it? In the liberal paradigm, our collective rejection of expansive government programs, benefits and tax burdens—which undermine paramount ideals of self-sufficiency and industriousness—condemns us to intellectual inferiority vis-à-vis our wise, statist overlords.

Don’t take my word for it. Bloomberg’s Clive Crook is a center-left journalist and self-admitted supporter of Obamacare and the Democrat’s policy positions (he “wants to see them succeed”), and was being honest in “Why Do Democrats Look Down on Voters?” “Here’s what counts about Gruber’s comments: His views on the stupidity of the American electorate express the party’s reflexive disdain for the very people it hopes (in all sincerity) to serve…but some (political salesmen) respect their customers, whereas others look down on them.

“The Democrats’ brand of disapproval has a particular quality that puts their party and its good ideas at a perpetual electoral disadvantage…Liberals have an exaggerated respect for intellectual authority and technical expertise…(They) have an unduly narrow conception of the values that are implicated in political choices…(and become convinced) that if you disagree with Democrats on universal health insurance or almost anything else, it can only be because you’re stupid.

“Voters recognize this as insufferable arrogance and, oddly enough, they resent it.” Leftist critics of this column would be wise to look up Mr. Crook’s column by name and read all of it before heaping scorn on my positions, which clearly reflect large majorities of local and national voters. Stupid? Not!

Conservatives often echo Rush Limbaugh’s “low information voter” descriptor for the Democrat base. Is this just our arrogance and condescension reversed against our political opposites? I don’t think so, in the sense that there’s anecdotal and empirical basis for such a descriptor. After the 2008 election, videos surfaced of Obama voters being asked all sorts of basic questions about our government, major political figures and prominent news. The revealed ignorance (i.e. not knowing who Obama’s vice president was, or thinking that Sarah Palin really said she could see Russia from her house) was breathtaking.

Timothy H. Lee analyzed the most recent poll on the subject, “Republicans More Informed Than Democrats, According to Pew Research,” (10/08/14) regarding Pew’s “What Do Americans Know” survey. Look it up by title, or go to DonPolson.blogspot.com and find it posted on 11/19.

To summarize, “Out of 12 questions asked, Republicans outperformed both Democrats and Independents on 10,” with double-digit leads on several issues and small Democrat leads on 2 topics (all listed in article). Moreover, there seems to be a pattern: “In 2012, Republicans outscored Democrats on 11 of 12 items…In the 2011 Pew survey, Republicans outperformed Democrats on every single one of 19 questions,” and on 10 of 12 in 2010.

Additionally, in a study that must have stunned the liberals at the New York Times, in 2010 the Times reported “Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated” than their opponents. Those knuckle-dragging Neanderthals were “more likely to possess a college degree…a graduate degree…some college and even to have graduated from high school.” Perhaps conservative suspicion and rejection of expansionist, “transformational” government and ballooning benefit programs is actually a result of superior intellect and knowledge. Just sayin’.