“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” So said Benjamin Franklin. On that very subject, a social media post seen today depicted a sign that said: IF YOU DON’T HATE TRUMP AFTER THIS 18 MONTH SHIT SHOW, YOUR COMMITMENT TO STUPIDITY IS IMPRESSIVE.
And then there was a cartoon depicting an old bald white dude wearing a GOP pin with the caption: WE FIND THE PRESIDENT INNOCENT BY REASON OF WE DON’T CARE IF HE’S GUILTY!
I’ve had this very subject of willful stupidity weighing on my mind for more than a week, which I’d previously resisted writing about because it involves all-too-real people with whom I came into contact. What a disappointment they turned out to be.
By all initial accounts, these folks were kind, gracious, and charming. Right up until I realized they had Fox News blaring in their living room apparently 24/7, because the TV was on for hours while no one was actually in the house. And it remained on after visitors, including me, came inside. Not to watch TV, but to take a break from the heat and enjoy refreshments. And yet, Fox News remained on, dubiously droning in the background.
First, let me say it’s easy to blame Fox News for the literal pandemic of stupidity sweeping across the US, especially among aging Americans who damn well should know better. After all, it paid $787.5 million in 2023 to settle the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit, in which it was determined to have “knowingly broadcast false claims” regarding “rigging” of the 2020 presidential election.
Despite that the legal settlement in that case did not require Fox News to issue an on-air apology or retraction, it still stands to reason that at least some rabid followers might have begun to have gotten a clue. Except, no, that would mean they’d have to wise up, swallow their pride, and admit they’d been stupid.
After all, even Fox News—due to Tucker Carlson—admitted that it is not so much a news organization as it is entertainment, which is how it gets around lying about anything and everything—perhaps even more than the current president, quite the fascist feat. But this reality only resonates if one is paying attention, which Fox fans clearly are not, nor do they want to. Even now that Tucker Carlson and others, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, have actually denounced their demented MAGA cult leader.
Unfortunately, Fox News was well on its way to destroying our democracy and rendering—or keeping—far too many people stupid long before Trump came on the presidential scene. Indeed it’s been blaring on military bases—and the cafeteria at US Coast Guard headquarters in DC—for more than two decades now. But it could not have done so much damage without those who gleefully remain demonstrably delighted at being lied to 24/7.
Case in point, my recent unfortunate experience. I didn’t have to listen to what was being said on Fox News while I was in that house, because things that were brought up both outside and inside made it painfully clear what it had been spewing to its happy-to-suck-up-stupidity audience.
While outside, I learned how these folks thought Dr. Fauci should be criminally convicted by the Senate, and would be if it weren’t for the 60-vote filibuster. And did you know that the late Senator Graham’s memorial service—according to a woman who didn’t even know what state he represented—was attended by more foreign dignitaries than any other elected US official ever in history? She said proudly that this was all she needed to know about what kind of man he was (but apparently not enough for her to figure out he was from South Carolina and likely gay).
So while Fox News was busy making Lindsey Graham a messiah and Anthony Fauci a villain, these folks were also inexplicably mad at a state in which they’ve never set foot—and claimed never to want to. Apparently it was vitally important to discuss with me during lunch how California was losing two representatives because so many were leaving the state. Or some such nonsense, because pertinent particulars were lacking in their numbskull narrative.
What I wanted to ask, but didn’t, was why do you care? You don’t vote there. You don’t vacation there. You know absolutely nothing about California other than what Fox News programmed you to be mad about. As confirmed when I attempted to engage in rational discussion because I do know something about a state where I’ve lived, voted, and been a practicing member of the State Bar of California.
It’s sad that they have nothing more important to be concerned about in this world than whether California might be down a few Republican members of Congress. Even worse, the man said he wasn’t stating an opinion, but a fact. Really? A fact from Fox News? But what else should I expect from someone who reveres those who stormed the beach at Normandy in WWII without seeming to comprehend what Americans were actually fighting against? Talk about not being able to recognize fascism when you see it—the ultimate in dipshit, albeit dangerous, stupidity.
In the end, it’s not about their advancing senior status, because my mother just turned 93 and she is quite aware how awful our current presidential administration is, and what it is doing to our nation. She isn’t stupid enough to think Fox News puts her in the know about anything of consequence.
This is also not about the “uneducated,” because plenty of those who feast on Fox News are college graduates. Instead, this involves folks who remain deliberately uninformed about what is really happening, bathing in their blithe stupidity, so much so they attempt to spread it around to others to validate their spoon-fed political positions, when they have no idea to whom they are speaking (they never bothered to ask how I know so much about California), and no in depth, fact-checked knowledge of what they are blathering about.
Why do they persist in this gobsmacking stupidity that threatens to undermine our democracy? I presume it’s so they can continue to delude themselves into thinking they have a clue, and are in the know. Sadly and pathetically, they are not. Perhaps the expression “sly as a fox” should be replaced with stupid as a Fox fanatic. Because what these people are is unforgiveable idiots. They had a choice, and they decided to remain ignorant at the expense of the rest of us and our nation.
None of that is kind, gracious, or charming. It’s despicable and downright stupid.