(*No, that’s not what he said at all, but hey, Matt Drudge can do it, so why can’t I?)
I was as much amused by Rick Santorum’s comment yesterday—“We will never have the elite, smart people on our side”—during his speech at the ultra conservative Values Voter Summit as I was by this paragraph—or some variation thereof—that invariably followed without any need for further comment or elaboration:
“Rep. Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Kirk Cameron, Gov. Jan Brewer, Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Steve King are among other scheduled speakers.”
On nearly every blog, the ingredients of the report were the video of Santorum (see below) and a mention of some of his fellow far-right fuit loops who would be speaking at the conservative Christian political confab. Perhaps they were trying to be droll—I decided to take it that way—or maybe they were just dryly reporting the facts. Either way, a list of those particular Republican names speaks volumes, doesn’t it?
Former GOP presidential candidate Santorum’s full quote was:
“We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country. We will never have the elite, smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do.”
Well, Rick, that’s one way to look at it, but there’s an obvious—or what should be obvious—flip-side to that equation that you might want to take into consideration: WHY do you reckon that it’s difficult for these “elite, smart people” to acquiesce to the will of a bunch of folks who they perceive as a bunch of ignorant hicks who have decided that they’re going to “take back our country” and so forth?
Take it back from…? And where will these science-denying dumbshit Tea party Taliban types take it back to? Before African Americans had the vote or before they were allowed to play Major League Baseball? Just how far back are we talking, here?
His delightfully candid remark calls into question how Mr. Santorum and other Christian conservatives define “freedom,” a word and concept that was thrown around—and shit on—by at least half of the Values Voters Summit’s speakers: Should “the elite, smart people” stand silently by and do nothing and simply allow, without protest or objection, a group of people they consider to be rank ignoramuses and dangerous buffoons to run roughshod over what they see as THEIR OWN RIGHTS (or the rights of others)?
If you take only the example of marriage equality, one groups wants to get married for a variety of benefits that will have virtually ZERO effect—none—on the lives of conservative religious straight people, so why A.) do the people who attend the VVS even care and B.) why do they think that THEY should have final say over what gay people do, simply because they “don’t agree with it”?
Because… Jebus?
That’s not a reason!
What I don’t get, and what is making me laugh, is how it doesn’t seem to phase Rick Santorum even one tiny little bit that he’s is, in essence, defining himself as being a member of the STUPID TEAM that the evil smart elite people want to subjugate with stuff like gay marriage and insurance being required to cover birth control. His argument isn’t “We’re smarter than they are so they should listen to us,” it’s more like… well, to be honest, I don’t even know, really, how the fuck to parse what Santorum believes. Once someone admits that they’re hositle to intelligence itself, I don’t really feel it’s incumbent upon me to search out the nuance of their blinkered, unsophisticated worldview.
Mr. Santorum doesn’t seem to have noticed the causality between his own position of being against birth control and the fact that he lost—and lost miserably—to a man who now seems set to lose handily himself in the general election. But he has made an important observation: “Smart people” and Republicans don’t have a whole lot in common anymore.
In any case, why aren’t the right wing bloggers and peanut gallery commenters at Breitbart, The National Review and WorldNetDaily absolutely up in arms about Santorum calling them stupid?
Tee-hee! Personally, I think Rick Santorum has inadvertently hit on THE defining reason for the GOP’s problems with “the elite, smart people”: Intelligent, NON-GULLIBLE voters will, never, ever cede the control of their lives to the likes of Michele Bachmann, Steve King or Todd Akin. Any Republican politician who could carry Mississippi, Alabama or Arkansas in a national election IS GOING TO LOSE in the more populous, better-educated coastal states. You can stuff your face with Chick-fil-A until you puke, but nothing is going to change that fact, bunky. The GOP has backed itself into a demographic corner, a demographic that’s literally dying off.
So what advice will those multi-million dollar consulting and marketing firms come up with to help the GOP keep winning elections after they get absolutely trounced this November? Forget about them, I say to you, Republican overlords: It was those top dollar marketing smarty-pantses that gave you guys Mitt fuckin’ Romney in the first place
Nope, Rick Santorum has already got it all figured it out for ya, you shadowy reptilian Republican druids who pull the levers of power behind the curtain: It’s all coming down a simple matter of smart vs DUMB and Santorum defined the battle yesterday in a single sentence of crystal clear truth:
“We will never have the elite, smart people on our side.”
That’s right, NEVER.
Gutting the educational system is the far right’s very last chance of even holding the ground they have now. The Republican establishment pretty much knows that they can’t win national elections strictly along racial demographic lines anymore. Richard Nixon’s so-called “Southern Strategy” is kaput after this current election cycle. But since blockheads tend to vote as a bloc, in the long game, taking advantage of “The Great American IQ Stratification” (which is inevitably how history will see it, unless history is written by future David Bartons) and trying to encourage deeper ignorance and more widespread stupidity is the GOP’s only hope.