I’m not certain how we’ve arrived at this place, this state of being declassyfied, but we’re most assuredly here. Neither Donnie and his devotee’s, nor Vlad and his vassals caused us to become classless. It isn’t just the Ayatollah and his acolytes, or the Pope and his proselytes that have stymied our social evolution.
But when you add all the assholes together they sure have helped, and they’re a solid indicator that as a species we’ve taken a couple of evolutionary steps backward. Actually, the decision to degrade ourselves has been a process, and Donnie and his feckless flock are merely an example of the culmination of that process. Come to think of it, maybe we haven’t devolved so much as made a conscious choice to not advance socially anymore. Either way it’s been a process and the various asshats that run countries or mythologies are only part of the reason for our degradation.
The rest of the blame falls on our inherent greed and laziness. It makes us gullible and ripe for exploitation by soulless reprobates with illusions of grandeur spouting promises to us they have no intention of keeping.
We’ve always had the ability to be classless. But as a society we’ve occasionally determined that we should supress our greed and idiocy and take a shot at noble and altruistic. Ages of enlightenment and reformation followed. But, these days it looks like we’ve abandoned that experiment pretty much entirely.
We’ve also always been lazy and greedy, but tended to keep advancing our society for the sake of art and science and medicine in spite of the sloth and avarice. That is, until we ran up against a fourteenth century plague, or a super volcano that temporarily derailed advancement in favor of survival. Survival mode doesn’t give much of a fuck about any advancement other than the immediate personal kind.
So far so good on the super volcano though, even if Yosemite is bubbling and due. Ebola is an African problem, and as long as the latest Chinese pig flu doesn’t jump to humans we’re sort of pandemic free, so what stimulant has caused this latest resurgence of classless stupidity?
Social media and old school media have been the magic potion. The elixir that’s freed the stupid genie from its bottle. Classless stupidity rules the airwaves and saturates us with few reasons to be better people and countless reasons to be worse. The volume of classless idiocy is so heavy that we’ve accepted nonsense and lunacy as the new normal.
I remember when being classy and educated was an aspiration, and when eloquence and thoughtfulness were both sought after and admired. Not so much anymore.
If you doubt me then I challenge you to watch the next Trump campaign rally in its entirety. Spoiler alert. The incoherent pathological liar with the microphone is actually the president of the United States. I shit you not, the commander in chief of the American armed forces and supposed leader of the free world.
As you watch it becomes apparent that keeping it classy isn’t part of Donnie’s strategy. It’s likely that if Donnie became coherent and eloquent even for a moment that his base would become confused. They might even begin to wonder if he really was one of them.
Apparently it’s too fucking difficult to have to think and maybe even grow intellectually. It’s way easier to grab a beer, park your ass in a chair and listen to Sean fucking Hannity or Donnie fucking Trump telling you the truth is not the truth. Facts are not facts and that Democrats, women, colored people, science and the educated are out to get you.
I don’t understand why people are so attracted to a spectacle made up entirely of thinly veiled hatred and outright revilement and deceit.
It’s depressing to watch people applaud stupidity.
And yet, options abound if you’re incapable of paying attention to Donnie’s incoherence for a whole hour.
If you’re not particularly inclined toward the televised hate vendors, there are all other manner of methods to remain comfortably dumb. The Bachelor, The View, Fox and Friends, Survivor, Jersey Shore, all of the Housewives regardless of Atlanta or wherever the fuck they’re from, and any program where the audience gets to vote.
If television isn’t your thing then you can hit the internet and immerse yourself in anti-vaxxers absurdity or have a listen to the hordes of conspiracy cocksuckers that think Sandy Hook was a gubmint set-up to take their guns away. And then, once educated by the internet you can pick up your electronic device and twitter your own personal puerility to anyone willing to listen.
Remember to limit your characters though. You don’t want to lose people’s interest by making them read more than a couple of sentences at a time.
Stupidity is a chameleon. Sometimes it presents itself as nationalism or patriotism. Sometimes stupid presents as prejudice and sometimes stupid presents itself as entertainment.
But I did not expect that stupid would ever present itself as a candidate that people would elect.
Because that selection says as much about the electorate as it does about the elected.