It’s about intelligence – really?

By Ruth A. Sheets

Happy New Year again!  Well, back to my usual blogs.  I hope you will try some of the books I loved last year. 

These are responses I made to commenters on Robert Reich’s thread on Substack.  I hope you find my responses at least tolerable in addressing the insanity we are now experiencing.  There is a lot of negativity lately on the threads, and from what others are saying, many botts active right now.  I guess they think their “despair” can influence us to give up or comply in support of the appalling behavior of Trump and his toddler pool.  Not happening!  A commenter named Rick told me that I am  “giving too much credit to intelligent people, a rare commodity in America these days.”  I answered right back. 

Rick, yes I am.  There are a lot of intelligent people in this nation, even among the MAGAs.  A lot of those MAGAs are looking for something clearly missing in their life:  personal worth, some control in their lives, respect.  They work at low-paying jobs or if they are able, in slightly higher-paid work, but work where their bosses think of them as cogs that make their business operate, nothing else of value to the corporation.  When Donald Trump was falsely portrayed on "The Apprentice as a great businessman," they thought he was something special because he owned buildings with his name on them and could just say "you're fired" and the person was gone from the show (fake business).  The viewers didn't know the whole thing, presented as though it were "reality TV" but in real life, it took more than 200 hours of taping each episode for one 42 minute broadcast.  That is nothing like "reality" but the exhausted viewers saw what the producers, deceivers wanted them to see.  Then a bunch of despicable Republican operatives saw their chance to put into office an ignoramus with no experience, but who was a narcissist, a serial liar, hated everyone who did not bow to him, and was easily manipulated, but could be made popular among a bunch of folks.  He was their man and they went crazy promoting him and his nasty attitude, dismissive language, insults, avoiding mention of his misogyny, racism, and classism.  They knew those would work on their behalf when they got Trump into office.  They helped him get Russian involvement and probably committed other crimes to get their Baby Donnie elected in 2016.  Trump's sex admission tape didn't even shake any of the MAGAs because now they had a cause, a hero, someone they thought cared about them, even respected them; they had the hat to prove it!  Trump didn't win the popular vote, but it didn't matter since the Electoral College was designed to give too much power to the small and at the time slave states than to the actual majority of the people.  Throughout the first term and Biden's term that same cadre of despicables manipulated the courts, the media, the MAGAs and more to get Trump elected again in 2024 despite 2 honest impeachments and an attempted coup/insurrection.  That 2024 election was probably manipulated in the "swing states" by Musk and his AI and Starlink, but Democrats wanted to prove some kind of gracious loser persona, so they did nothing to challenge the election, which they should have.  Oh well, so now, we have an old man with dementia in the white house being manipulated by appalling actors like the ball of hate Steve Miller, the rich unscrupulous guy Vought, the whiny white boy Vance, and so many more in Trump's toddler pool.  The MAGAs are desperate because they don't know what to do and who to believe because they have been betrayed and don't know how to respond beyond what they have been doing for the past decade which gave them some orgasmic moments of power and belonging.  It is hard to reverse a decade-long clinging to a fake.  This is not about intelligence; it is about how people are treated and what we have permitted the ultra-rich and bad actors to do to our people.  We do have freedom of speech or should have that, but free speech does not include putting people's lives at risk, insurrection, and abuse by AI, since AI is not human, though its operators are and should be held accountable.   

J L Wrote on how we have lost a sense of the common good, and used the example of how learning about Lincoln was lost when the “meaningless Presidents’ Day” replaced Lincoln’s Birthday celebration.  I responded with this.

J L, so much of our lack of concern for the common good has been partly attributable to an over-emphasis in schools on testing, learning to read for itself, not for the purpose for learning to read, understanding and knowledge.  Teachers are often given lousy curricula, then expected to teach it to the letter to classes of a wide range of students who learn differently.  There is often little heart in it.  The passages to read are not particularly interesting and not discussed beyond basic comprehension.  We don't trust our kids to have curiosity and a desire to learn, so we make school like a learning prison for them then wonder why some act so badly and others just comply because it's easier.  We can do better, but we need people in the Departments of Education federal, state, and local who know something of education, its challenges, and the benefit of trusting our well-trained teachers to make connections with their students, and provide whatever support is needed.  My favorite teachers growing up were those who made their own paths to learning while using the curricula as guides.  That was true in college too.  Teachers can still talk about Lincoln on his birthday as well as the others born the same day, year, and decade and how their thinking compares.  Children like being on their phones and computers, so what about asking kids to go online to find out about Lincoln, Darwin (born at the same time), Louis Braille, same year, and ask what they might have been like at the students' current age.  What might have helped them to grow into the adults they became?  Creative teachers can work that into any curricula.  There are good materials online to support drifting important concepts into curricula without the crazies realizing what is happening.  Our kids would benefit and so would this nation.    

So, these are two  comments I submitted.  I don’t know how they will be received as I wrote them today, but they are both things I needed to say and that I wanted to share with you too.  We must be aware of the efforts to undermine nearly every aspect of life so most will give up.  I don’t think giving up is going to happen.  The murder of a protester in Minneapolis by a Border Patrol officer is not going to win friends and influence people and neither is the attack on Venezuela and the theft of their oil because a toddler-man with dementia in the white house ordered it or that’s what we have been told. 

Keep standing for those actions that will support a move toward the common good and challenging the greed, lies, disinformation, and the rest that give cover to the selfish autocrats who would do as much harm as possible to this nation and our world.