John Stuart Mill said that “conservatives are not generally stupid, but most stupid people are generally conservatives.” He said this over 150 years ago, when it probably wasn’t really a fair or accurate statement. But I would sure love to hear what Mill would have to say about today’s Republican Party.
Here is what Nikki Haley, chief also-ran in the current Republican race for President, tweeted out after the latest school shooting in Iowa: “We need to secure our schools like we secure our airports.” Yes, instead of regulating assault weapons and putting even a pittance of funding into background checks or mental health services, Republicans want to turn schools into armed camps. A single x-ray machine costs $200,000, and there are about 115,000 schools in the US. Add to this that you need security guards to run these machines and even at minimum wage, you’re looking at a total bill of at least $50 billion for this genius idea. The entire amount spent on education for K-12 in the US is about $800 billion per year, meaning schools would have to cut their budgets significantly to pay for this – because you sure aren’t going to get Republicans to agree to raise taxes.
Here’s Nikki Haley again, after being asked what she thought was the cause of the Civil War: “I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run, what you could and couldn't do, the freedoms in what people could and couldn't do." This ranks up there with the dumbest answer ever given by a politician anywhere in any time. The answer is slavery; one word, simple and straightforward, and there is absolutely zero debate about this. But because Haley has decided she needs to pander to the MAGA maniacs, she couldn’t just say ‘slavery’. Saying that word implies that black people have been wronged, and that is a fact most Republicans simply do not want to accept.
Now, Nikki Haley isn’t really this vacuous and stupid. She is saying these things because she knows they are what Republicans want to hear. On every issue, across every demographic, Republicans reside in alternate fairyland in which truth and reality are not invited to the picnic. The policy positions of Republicans are either grossly hypocritical, wantonly cruel, or based on the most pathetic lies that even an eight-year-old can see through. To wit:
- Gun ownership should not be regulated or limited in any way, and all the resultant killings are simply the price of freedom.
-Abortion should be outlawed, even when the mother’s life is in danger. Women, once they are pregnant, should have no control over their bodies or their health, because being vassals for reproduction is why they were put on this earth.
-Racism does not exist in America, except the racism directed against white people.
-Climate change - despite an Everest-like mountain of scientific evidence - is a hoax that is being perpetuated so that socialists can take over the world.
-Fifty years of tax cuts on businesses and rich people haven’t been enough; more are needed even though these cuts have already decimated middle-and lower-income people by shifting the direct and indirect (healthcare, housing) costs of these cuts onto them.
-Deficits don't matter, until the Democrats take over, at which point they suddenly become apocalyptic.
-The Mexican border must be controlled by inflicting harsh measures on the migrants, rather than doing anything at all to the businesses who continually hire them.
-A large majority of Republicans still claim the 2020 election was rigged, even though not even one tiny fibre of evidence has ever been produced to support this claim. Trump has lost every single court case on this issue, including when it went to the right-wing packed Supreme Court.
Nothing illustrates the hypocrisy and ignorance of Republican voters more than illegal immigration. A poll taken in Iowa before last week’s GOP caucus (which Trump won handily) found that 77 percent of Republicans favored militarizing the southern border. There are something like 50,000 undocumented people in Iowa, and I’m pretty sure they’re not there for the scenery. They work for many of those very same people who support Trump (who has repeatedly employed illegal immigrants himself) and combined with other migrants who are there on a temporary permit, make up nearly 40 percent of Iowa agricultural workers. According to the former head of the Iowa Cattlemen, agriculture in in the state “wouldn’t be possible without immigrant labor.” The logical solution is to make it unaffordable to hire undocumented workers by enforcing and increasing the penalties on businesses that hire them. Without waiting jobs, the migrants won’t risk their lives crossing the border.
But the key word is “logical.” Republicans live in an echo chamber in which they hear and read (?) only things that reinforce their beliefs and feelings. Studies have shown that once people believe something, they will work very hard to hold onto it, facts and evidence be damned. In our time of rapid change and complex problems, low-information conservatives have evermore relied on trusted sources to provide easy answers, and we have no shortage of politicians like Haley willing to sell out. Open societies rely on honest, informed debate to root out prejudice and lies and mistakes. As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant. But it doesn’t work when a large swath of the population deliberately shuts themselves up in the dark.
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