You Wanna Be an American Idiot?

“Don't wanna be an American idiot
Don't want a nation under the new media
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mind fuck America”

          American Idiot by Green Day

In a 1964 article in Harper's Magazine, Richard Hofstadter writes, "In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated…how much political leverage can be gotten out of the animosities and passion of a small minority." Now, a half a century later, we see a similar pattern of behavior. Recently, journalist Michael Stickings remarked, "Much of the American electorate is dominated by apathy and ignorance, if not outright stupidity. Such apathy, such ignorance, and such stupidity are what allow so many voters to vote against their own self-interest, to be manipulated by right-wing propaganda, and to believe things that just aren't true."

Unfortunately, a significant number of our fellow citizens are willingly joining the ranks of the bewildered herd, as like lemmings, blindly getting ready to make that final leap over the cliff into the depths of an economic, social, educational, and political morass. Tea Party demagogues along with their neo-conservative Christian Dominionist right-wing cronies pumped millions of dollars into campaigns that lowered any standards of veracity. Followers of these political and religious zealots voraciously lapped up their untruths and mischaracterizations of the political and economic landscape. Without question, one of the reasons for this herd mentality is a growing acceptance of anti-intellectualism in this country.

Before I begin each class I teach at the community college, I share with students three premises which I colonized from Charles Pierce, author of Idiot America- How Stupidity became a Virtue in the Land of the Free.  Here they are:

1.  Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings or otherwise moves units.

2. Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough.

3. Fact is that which enough people believe.  Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.

I encourage, nay, embolden students to not believe anything I say and to question everything.  This comes a shock to many of them because they have spent twelve years in public schools where critical dialogue is marginalized and Paulo Freire’s concept of banking education is the norm.

The irony is unmistakable. Spewing rhetoric extolling the merits of the founding fathers and support of the Constitution, the leaders of this right-wing train wreck have convinced the herd that relying on blind emotion is preferable to elitist Ivy League intellectualism. Let's see. 

One of the Federalist Papers writers, Alexander Hamilton, said, "The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right." When did ignorance become a virtue?  Perhaps the right has adopted the Orwellian concept that Ignorance is Strength. Shall we escort the herd to Room 101 to re-educate them into believing that 2 + 2 = 5?

The collective memory of many in this country is so short-lived that they can be led to accept policies that are, in effect, detrimental to their own well-being. With cries from right of "Take our country back," is not one prodded to politely ask the question, "Back to where?" The signpost up ahead for this episode of "The Twilight Zone" points to the Gilded Age.

In a column in truthout.org, Henry Giroux describes our current environment as one which is controlled by the unfettered power of international corporations, 21st century robber barons. "If the first rule of robber baron politics is to make power invisible, the second is to make it unaccountable and the third rule is to give as much power as possible to those who revel in barbaric greed, social irresponsibility, unconscionable economic inequity, corrupt politics, resurgent monopolies and an unapologetic racism (parading as an attack on political correctness no less)." This is the vision to which the multitudes unashamedly and religiously rejoice in the vitriolic hymns of their modern day robber baron political saviors? Is this really the nation which the right wants us to reclaim?

A nation without government regulations, without Social Security, without minimum wage laws, without unions, with lowered taxes on the rich, without any emphasis on the crumbling infrastructure, thirst for international markets, xenophobia, homophobia and institutionalized racism?  This is their vision?  A vision that is going to be more attainable thanks to a 5-4 vote in the Citizens United decision that gives more credence to this paraphrase of Marx's observation,  "The executive, judicial, and legislative branches of the modern state are but committees to manage the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."

In Thomas Frank's account of how the conservatives co-opted the middle class in "What's the Matter with Kansas," we find this passage: "All they have to show for their Republican loyalty are lower wages, more dangerous jobs, dirtier air, a new overlord class that comports itself like King Farouk — and, of course, a crap culture whose moral free fall continues, without significant interference from the grandstanding Christers whom they send triumphantly back to Washington every couple of years."

The bewildered herd, now unabashedly re-energized by the propaganda of Room 101, enters the voting booth content in the belief that 2 +2 really does equal 5, realizing that ignorance really does equal strength, war is peace, and freedom is slavery. This new millennium version of the Great Awakening has at least one thing in common with the pre-Revolutionary evangelical movement. The flock of followers is overjoyed to free themselves from the shackles of reason and instead, join the revival of emotional excess as their robber baron saviors relish a communion of unbridled avarice.