Gunning for the Dumb Vote

Have you seen the movie “Idiocracy”? In this satiric look at America’s future, a soldier selected for his averageness and a prostitute trying to escape her pimp are frozen in an army experiment, forgotten, and emerge 500 years later, when the United States has devolved into a society dominated by sex, violence, and crass corporate commercialism. Everyone in the future is gravely stupid as a result of the intelligentsia having fewer and fewer children for generations, while the dumb people had more and more kids. The two average folks from the past are now the smartest people in the world. The President of this future America is a professional wrestler, like the ones on WWE.

That’s right, the WWE where you recently saw our current Presidential candidates posturing for votes. Sometimes I worry that the future is now.

I don’t mean to sound like another Ivy League-educated elitist, but doesn’t it seem like the Presidential campaign keeps getting dumber and dumber? Here’s Hillary, throwing back whiskey and beer, talking about huntin’, that is when she isn’t dodging sniper fire in her personal Rambo movie. There’s Hillary threatening to “totally obliterate” Iran, leading Iran to complain to the U.N. about the threat from She-who-would-be-President-or-else. (You can almost hear John McCain singing that old ditty of his, “Bomb, bomb Iran” in the background.)

Hillary leads among Democratic voters who have a high school education or less, as well as among hunters, gun owners, and bowlers. Barack Obama is portrayed by the Clinton campaign and others as an Ivy League-educated elitist. At the same time, it’s hinted, Obama just might be an angry racist black man or Muslim – I mean, as far as we know. Wait, it’s been a full five minutes since someone mentioned crazy Jeremiah Wright – that’s far too long!

Hillary had a nice privileged upbringing and an Ivy League education. Like George W. Bush, she’s trying to portray herself as the candidate we’d like to have a beer (or a near beer) with. President Bush was elected on that basis – Gore and Kerry were too intellectual, too stiff, too “French” – and the results have been just peachy.

Not to say that Hillary isn’t smart. Her wonky command of policy detail is well documented. She’s also clever like a fox, as her sound bites and those of Fox News on Barack become harder and harder to distinguish. She’s not trying to play dumb (that would be career suicide for a woman politician); she’s just gunning for the dumb vote.

The media is interested in the dumb vote too - critical thinking is overrated when it comes to ratings. Who wants to hear about Jena, Louisiana when we can hear about Jamie Lynn Spears in Louisiana? Who wants to hear the candidates answer substantive debate questions about United States policy and the direction of the nation, when we can keep playing an endlessly fascinating game of gotcha?

On the election front, Hillary wouldn’t have it any other way. To paraphrase one of the slogans from her boomer ‘60’s: if it works for her, do it.

Barack Obama doesn’t want to play the same old game. He tried to elevate the conversation from the very start of his campaign, and for a while, it seemed like it might work. But now even he has been put on the defensive and forced into the dumb and dumber trenches. His own missteps like Bittergate haven’t helped nor has the media-hungry Reverend Wright. It’s a shame.

Barack Obama is a member of an elite, not because of his circumstances (he and Michelle only recently paid off their school loans, and are not part of any Presidential dynasty), but because he is asking the American people to rise above all the idiocy. That’s a rare and risky position to take, but he knows nothing will change until we do. Yet, with the media and his Democratic rival hurtling headfirst into the idiotic future, where is the hope? Barack needs to get his groove back and get back on message and above the fray. America needs to listen and follow him out of the muck. We can’t be so dumb as to repeat the same political nonsense over and over again, and expect a different result.