We celebrate intelligence, they celebrate blind loyalty (expanded)

[BarackTheVote]

A few people told me to make this an OP, so... here goes.

Republicans are anti-intellectual authoritarians; this means they present a unified front and a black-and-white view of the world. If you don't go along with the talking points memo as a Republican operative, you are considered a heretic and subject to fierce backlash.

Democrats are intelligent and recognize shades of gray; this means that we might not all be in lockstep when it comes to certain issues--we use our brains rather than just buy into what we are told; in general, our narrative is much more nuanced... and due to this fact, it doesn't do well with today's sound-bite-centric form of journalism.

Republicans cannot accept it when they make mistakes, therefore their narrative is that they are never wrong--if it looks like they are, their surrogates spin relentlessly, flushing the mistake down the memory hole, or going on the attack to draw attention away from what they've done. Their followers accept this because to them Conservatism is a kind of religion that must be accepted as infallible, whole sale, without question. Democrats, however, are more likely to admit their mistakes and take responsibility, accepting whatever criticism they receive as due their infraction. This is spun by the other side as weakness.

Republicans are ruthless and immoral in their pursuit of power. They play dirty tricks and they monopolize the national narrative. Republicans were the first to seize upon the 24-hour news cycle to create their own channel for propaganda. And because loyalty is key to the Republican mentality, their followers flocked there. This put free-market pressure on other cable stations to go partisan. But, again, Republicans are less fickle than Democrats. Look at what happened after the first debate. MSNBC is ostensibly the liberal answer to Fox... however, our pundits freaked out and pissed a lot of us off. But as I explained before, Democrats are more likely to give their honest opinion of a matter whether or not it is sanctioned by the party... therefore, we can never have a dogmatic news outlet like the GOP does in Fox... So: hosts on RW outlets are more liable to tow the party line, and their viewers are more likely to accept what is said; therefore, the Republican viewing bloc is considered more loyal to a station, and is therefore more valuable than us.

But why is the authoritarian mindset so appealing? I'd present the case that it's evolutionary. As descendants of social animals, it was evolutionarily smart to create a hierarchy, which also means that it's embedded in us to follow a strong leader. How can so many people get weighed down by the superficial in a debate like the first one we saw between Mr. Romney and President Obama? Why do the fact-based arguments fall on deaf ears while Romney's attitude is glorified? Because he looked like the alpha male on stage, and many people innately respond to that. The urge toward following is strong and requires an act of will to overcome, just as the urges of our reptile brain can be difficult to subjugate. It is simply easier to give in and follow the leader. The argument I'm making here is that being a Democrat is innately HARDER than being a Republican; being a Democrat requires more of an investment in nurturing, in our intelligence, and in promoting a bias toward what is rational.

This country is literally being conditioned as sheep to the slaughter. By defunding education, monopolizing the media, their entire platform summarized into empty sound-bites, the GOP has tapped into the basic laziness of the American electorate. Or, as Eleanor Roosevelt put it: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

[upi402]

1. Propaganda works!

Corporatists control the media.

Therefore, chickens vote for Colonel Sanders.

[joycejnr]

2. A corollary to this is to separate the leaders from the sheeplets...

...and recognize that the leadership knows that the easiest people to sway are Authoritarian Personalities and fundamental evangelical religiophiles. (See David Kuo's book Tempting Faith, where once he entered the White House he found out that he and his fellow Born Again Christians were thought of as 'crazies,' and useful only for winning campaigns, not for governing - Conservative leaders aren't that stupid.)

The members of the Conservative political leadership are merely paid guns for the greediest of our wealthy class, hell-bent on sending us back to the medieval days of feudalism and serfdom. They, in turn, propandize the sheeplets, the 'sheep to the slaughter.'

As Jefferson noted, ""Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last one of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all." --Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 1824. "

Alhough Jefferson would disagree, it's time to understand that the party of the rich is inimicable to the tenets of democracy and should be made illegal. He saw that the Burkes of the eighteenth century were harmful to society, he just didn't realize how easy it might me in later years to squelch democracy by slowly grinding our noses into the dirt.

Greed is bad, greed is anti-democratic, and because greed is ingrained by many of us at birth, the greedy among us must be re-educated through each generation.

[lunatica]

3. Ten years ago we were beginning to seriously talk about the dumbing down we've

undergone in this country. Of course it had been happening for quite a while, but it hadn't taken a foothold until Bush became President. It was then that the pattern started to emerge. It took a long time to understand because there are stages we all need to go through before we can accept what reality is showing us.

I don't know when it happened, but it did. We went from celebrating intelligence and innovation to celebrating idiocracy. How that happened is something for many discussions as we come to terms with what is, not what we'd like it to be.

Acceptance is the last stage of grief. I think we're there. Things are bad.