October 10, 2008 5:38 AM

Stoopid...and not afraid to display it openly and unabashedly

It's no wonder that the slightest incitement from Sarah Palin or John McCain will turn one of their rallies into a lynch mob. Just talk to the folks who attend. My camera was rolling for literally seconds before people happily said to me, on camera, that Barack Obama is a terrorist. If I hadn't spent most of my time at the event inside, waiting for the candidates to show up, I could have gotten dozens of these people on tape. It appears the McCain campaign has either been told to tone it down by the Secret Service, or is toning it down themselves, because Ayers never came up in the building. Which is good, because if they had invoked Ayers, this crowd, as you will see from the YouTube, would have easily gone to the death threats we've heard before, keeping the Secret Service busy for weeks. Of course, Jim Trakas didn't get the memo, saying Barack Obama supporters are "sinners" and implored the crowd to "pray for their souls."

My God, y'all...just when I think things in this Presidential campaign couldn't possibily become any more unhinged, we get these idjits from a McCain-Palin rally in Strongsville, OH. These fools (yes, better to be thought one than to open your mouth and remove all doubt) go far beyond mere "low-information" voters who can be, and are, easily manipulated by conventional Republican "fear and smear" tactics. No, these maroons are openly and aggressively stupid...and proud of it. Even worse, they vote. People like this are why I fear for the future of this country. When such epic, stunning ignorance is proudly and openly celebrated as if the truth of their beliefs are self-evident, when people who seemingly haven't had a rational thought in years swallow such blatant propaganda...well, how can you be optimistic?

I can handle differences of opinion; good, intelligent people can and will disagree. It used to be that the essence of democracy was the dialogue that occurred between those who hold divergent opinions. Republicans seem to have discovered, though, that propaganda is a much straighter and surer path to victory and dominion than rational debate, where you run the risk of losing the argument to superior logic. Why engage in a rational, open, and lucid debate when you can paint your opponent as a terrorist and/or an agent of Satan? When you're dealing with the ignorant, the uneducated, and the intellectually stunted, it's so much easier to go negative and paint your opponent in the worst possible light. After all, who's going to vote for a terrorist-lovin', America-hatin' elitist who would turn this country over to those who've sworn to destroy us? It doesn't get much simpler than that, does it? And this is exactly the problem.

Sometimes I think democracy is a really crappy idea. The problem, of course, is that all other available options are far worse.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on October 10, 2008 5:38 AM.

Remind me again why John McCain deserves to be President? was the previous entry in this blog.

Be it ever so humble...I'm freezing my @$$ off here! is the next entry in this blog.

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