Ignorance Bites Back

Alexandra Pelosi’s fascinating new documentary, “The Insurrectionist Next Door,” features a series of enlightening and disturbing encounters with men and one woman who participated in storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021.  She got them to speak openly and with candor, despite their being aware that she was the daughter of the woman that their fellow insurrectionists might have murdered had they succeeded in discovering her whereabouts.

Enlightening because, with one possible exception, all of those she interviewed were seemingly reasonable people with deeply held beliefs about the welfare of the United States.  Nor were they a bunch of rednecks.  One was Black, one was gay, and one was a doting father with three children.  Some had even voted for Barack Obama.  By and large, they came across as…surprisingly normal.

And, contrary to the widespread belief among the left, none of them—again, with one possible exception—was stupid. What was disturbing about her interviewees, however, was that each of them was worse than stupid.

They were all profoundly ignorant.

The distinction is vital.  Stupid people lack the ability to think critically.  Ignorant people choose not to.

Pelosi was very slick in avoiding questioning them too closely on their political motivation for joining in the riot, or in prodding them to explain what they thought was so wrong with the country that participating in a mob action was justified by “patriotism.”  She was content to let them get away with bland statements, such as “I just wandered in with everyone else,” or “We wanted to be heard.”

She also did not probe why almost none of them had any regrets for their actions beyond some vague admission that perhaps they had overdone it a bit. 

Most significantly, not one exhibited even the vaguest understanding of government, the Constitution they claimed to revere, or that one of the cornerstones of democracy is accepting a loss.  Nor did they evidence the tiniest interest in learning anything, choosing to cling to their fantasies with frightening self-satisfaction.  They either stated categorically or left the distinct impression of their unshakeable conviction that the 2020 election was stolen despite overwhelming evidence that it was not, and that Donald Trump remained a savior of American democracy rather than its biggest threat in almost a century.

In the end, they were all what most ignorant people are—blind followers. 

Blind followers are what politicians feast on, and this crew is no exception.  Republicans running for state, local, and national office have come to rely on ignorance to allow them to get elected and then re-elected, substituting ludicrous rhetoric or outright lies for achievement.  (Democratic candidates are not exactly repositories of truth, but today’s Republicans have set a whole new standard of dishonesty.)

And so, we see virtually the entire Republican House delegation and most Republican senators refusing to acknowledge that Biden won fair and square, nor will they admit that the leader of their party is a narcissist who could not be less interested in the welfare of the country or even in those who slavishly bestow their allegiance, to say nothing of the fact that he is a sex offender and will almost certainly be a convicted felon if he is not elected…and perhaps even if he is.

While the ignorant choose not to think, Republican members of Congress have responded by choosing to pander rather than govern.  They are not stupid, Tommy Tuberville apparently an exception, nor are they ignorant themselves, although there are more exceptions here.  They have merely adopted the mien of ignorance to impart a sense of security and belonging to their followers, which allows them to remain in the cushy jobs they seem willing to sell out their country for. 

But relying on ignorance is a risky business indeed, as House Republicans are now finding out.  Thinking themselves its masters they have now become its slaves.

Just three weeks ago, it would have unthinkable that Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Tom Emmer would have been rejected by their party for not being conservative enough.  But, with Trump induced ignorance now the Republican rule, all were.  Compounding the Republicans’ problem is that not everyone has totally bought in.  Jim Jordan, who was certainly ignorance qualified, was also shunned. 

Emmer’s rejection was particularly telling since by the time he became the nominee, the party was desperate and Emmer’s credentials should have been more than sufficient to allow him to sail into the Speaker’s chair.  But Trump, spouting his usual self-important vitriol, did not like that Emmer refused to bend low enough to kiss his…shoes…and Emmer was done.

Ignorance was thus once again triumphant, and Republicans descended even deeper into caricature. 

To be clear, ignorance is not confined to the weak-minded nor the right wing.  Bill Maher, an avowed Democrat who is purported to have one of the highest IQs in Hollywood, regularly rails against “science” as totally untrustworthy, all because he was a fierce opponent of vaccine mandates.  He has taken to regularly issuing shrill denunciations of anyone who believes that medical research rather than his own political beliefs should guide public health policy. 

Is science imperfect?  Of course.  Does the scientific process of trial sometimes lead to error?  Yes.  There is a saying for that.  But do we throw out all science because Bill Maher has decided vaccine mandates were unnecessary and a violation of his individual rights?

Hardly.

(He is equally damning of a university education, because, as he sees it, all colleges, seemingly without exception, have capitulated to the worst of the radical left.  One can only imagine what he thinks of Ivy League students in pre-med.) 

There is no cure for being ignorant except deciding not to be, which, alas, is more than we can hope for from a vast swath of the American electorate.  It falls to those, both liberal and conservative, who reject ignorance to do what they can to save American democracy.  That will require fortitude, commitment, and a belief that the survival of our system of government outweighs partisan considerations.

If ignorance is allowed to triumph, it will take the country along with it.