Trump’s level of intelligence is irrelevant to the damage he’s inflicting on American society and humankind as a whole.
OK, he’s smart enough to have pulled off, so far at least, the greatest con in world history, but his defining characteristic has nothing to do with his IQ. It lies in his singular ability to tell bald-faced lies that are eagerly accepted by large swaths of American voters.
In November, tens of millions of people will go to the polls and cast their ballots for a man who has convinced them that the 2020 election was rigged against him, that the country’s problems stem from the radical left, and that he is the only person on Earth who can fix those problems, even though he is being unfairly prosecuted by the Deep State and woke liberals.
IMO, there is no antidote for this poison, no cure for this disease. It’s something that needs to simply run its course, like a case of the flu.
Trying to have a rational discussion with people who think this way is as good a use of your time as trying to teach your dog to play the violin.
I was fortunate enough to have grown up in an affluent household, in which my parents were able to join a nice country club near Philadelphia when I was 12 years old. The kids with whom I played golf and tennis all came from similar settings, but it was immediately clear that they had a wide ranges of aptitudes and intelligences.
For example, there was a kid we all knew to be seriously unintelligent. From his Facebook page, it appears that he graduated from the local public high school and went no further with his education.
There was another who graduated from a 325-year-old Quaker prep school and then on to Princeton.
One of them posted the meme here, though remarkably, it could have been either of the two.
Over the years, the Princeton grad has posted on social media about the importance of building the wall, closing the borders that the Democrats had opened to human vermin, English as the only language in the U.S., the climate “hoax,” COVID as part of a government plan to enslave the American people, etc.
Seems like a lot of wasted money, since that level of education is available at Walmart.
From magician and actor Penn Jillette: For (millions of) years our biggest problems were too few calories, too little information. For about 50 years our biggest problem has been too many calories, too much information. We have to adjust, and I believe we will really fast. I also believe it will be wicked ugly while we’re adjusting.
Keep in mind that our capitalist society really doesn’t give a damn about what happens to the consumers who live on the garbage sold at fast-food restaurants and the interior aisles of our grocery stores.
As shown in the video below, submitted by Gary Tulie, Harvard University reports that coal dust and the exhaust from coal-fired power plants killed at least 460,000 people over the last 20 years.
Where we tend to think of coal-powered electricity as a principal cause of climate change and other forms of long-term environmental damage, we often overlook the devastation it causes to human life–and the families of those lost to lung disease. What about the impact on the children who now grow up fatherless and/or motherless?
The title of this post implies that it’s possible to ascribe a dollar-figure to this enormous catastrophe, and I suppose it is. If there were a series of class-action lawsuits, there would be gaggles of actuaries in insurance companies with huge spreadsheets running what-if calculations.
But in this case, no one’s paying. The atmosphere is simply a sewer into which the operators of coal plants discharge their waste–for free, regardless of the damage.
If the SCOTUS could act as swiftly and honestly on all matters pertaining to Trump, e.g., his claim to immunity from criminal prosecution, I’m sure we’d all be thrilled.
The cartoon here provides us with a great deal to think about. What precisely does the ever-accelerating rate of change in our world actually translate to in terms of the survivability of our civilization?
Society’s great minds constantly caution us about the need for wisdom and decency to keep pace with the growth in our capacity to blow things up.
Some are optimistic that this can occur. Others, e.g., American musician, composer, and songwriter Tom Waits are less so. He says: ‘We Are Monkeys With Money and Guns.’
As previously mentioned, 2GreenEnergy “headquarters” is located in a rural part of California, one whose political leanings, in the main, could be described as “God and country,” or simply “MAGA.”
At left are the flags flown in front of a house less than one mile from where I’m writing this post.
Hmmm. “The Revenge Tour.” Here’s a guy who wants a president who’s all about vengeance. Nothing that could even possibly translate into a better quality of life for the American people, just getting even with the woke libtards who stole the 2020 election, judges in the 60+ courts who found no evidence that the election was rigged, and the authors of the four indictments featuring 91 felony counts.
Here’s a supposedly neutral “survey” from ultra-right-wing educational institute Hillsdale College.
If they want to know what I believe, it is this:
Sham colleges, i.e., those who exist only to move public opinion to the extreme right, whose MO is causing confusion about the meaning of the word “socialism,” are doing a huge disservice to the country.
FWIW: Social democracy is frequently considered a practical middle course between capitalism and socialism. Social democracy aims to use democratic collective action for promoting freedom and equality in the economy and opposes what is seen as inequality and oppression that laissez-faire capitalism causes.