Special Report | The Dumbing Down of American Politics: Week of July 1

• Tea Baggers, Fundamentalists, Bigots, and Other American Dumbasses of the New Millennium
• 9 New Items including:
  • Dark Ages Redux: American Politics and the End of the Enlightenment
  • George Monbiot | Right's Stupidity Spreads, Enabled by Too-Polite Left
  • The Sources of American Political Dysfunction
  • Conservatism Thrives on Low Intelligence and Poor Information
  • These Low Information Voters Will Be Our Undoing
  • How these gibbering numbskulls came to dominate Washington
  • Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes
  • Sorry, Bigots: You're Dumb
  • Tea Baggers, Fundamentalists, and Other American Dumbasses of the New Millennium

David Culver, Ed., Evergreene Digest

Kahlil Bendib

Dark Ages Redux: American Politics and the End of the Enlightenment, John Atcheson, Common Dreams

• Republicans and Tea Partiers may be leading this retreat from reason, but they are unopposed by Democrats or the Press. And in the end, there is a special place in Hell for those who allow evil to prosper by doing nothing.
• George Monbiot | Right's Stupidity Spreads, Enabled by Too-Polite Left
• These Low Information Voters Will Be Our Undoing

George Monbiot | Right's Stupidity Spreads, Enabled by Too-Polite Left, George Monbiot, Guardian UK

• Conservativism may be the refuge of the dim. But the room for rightwing ideas is made by those too timid to properly object.
• How these gibbering numbskulls came to dominate Washington
• Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes

The Sources of American Political Dysfunction,  Thomas E. Mann and Norm Ornstein, Huffington Post

• In never-ending efforts to defeat incumbent officeholders in hard times, the public is perpetuating the source of its discontent, electing a new group of people who are even less inclined to or capable of crafting compromise or solutions to pressing problems.
• How these gibbering numbskulls came to dominate Washington
• Right's Stupidity Spreads, Enabled by Too-Polite Left

Conservatism Thrives on Low Intelligence and Poor Information, George Monbiot, Guardian UK

• There is plenty of research showing that low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood.
• Right's Stupidity Spreads, Enabled by Too-Polite Left

These Low Information Voters Will Be Our Undoing, David A. Love, Black Commentator / LA Progressive
Faced with hard times, people have clear choices. Either they join forces across racial and ethnic lines and fight their common adversary, or they double down on the dumbness, thrive on misinformation and assign scapegoats.

How these gibbering numbskulls came to dominate Washington, George Monbiot, Guardian UK
The degradation of intelligence and learning in American politics results from a series of interlocking tragedies

Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes, Gordon Hodson and Michael A. Busseri, Psychological Science

• Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact
• People with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence.

Sorry, Bigots: You're Dumb, Abby Zimet, Common Dreams

• "There is reason to believe that strict right-wing ideology might appeal to those who have trouble grasping the complexity of the world."
• George Monbiot | Right's Stupidity Spreads, Enabled by Too-Polite Left

Tea Baggers, Fundamentalists, and Other American Dumbasses of the New Millennium, Mickey Walker, TPJ Magazine
You won’t find evidence of...notable Tea Bagger big whigs like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, and now Christine O’Donnell ranting in outrage at government borrowing and spending on wars and on what they think to be God’s work, now will you?