The politics of stupid

By Libby Spencer

Krugman has a good op-ed today on how the "Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid." He doesn't mean that the politicians are dumb, but rather that they breed stupidity in the public. Here's a choice cut.

All this is in the past. But the state of the energy debate shows that Republicans, despite Mr. Bush’s plunge into record unpopularity and their defeat in 2006, still think that know-nothing politics works. And they may be right.

Sad to say, the current drill-and-burn campaign is getting some political traction. According to one recent poll, 69 percent of Americans now favor expanded offshore drilling — and 51 percent of them believe that removing restrictions on drilling would reduce gas prices within a year.

It's frightening really, how easily they get away with this sort of trickery. I mean even today, there's a whole lot of people who still believe Saddam had something to do with 9/11 and that we found WMDs in Iraq. The scary part is, a lot of people who believe this stuff are otherwise actually smart and accomplished people.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)