Joe the Plumber Now GOP Advisor

Artie60438 wrote:

The right keeps getting more and more insane with every election cycle. Do they not realize that their continuing war on science is a threat to humanity?

It's at least hurting the country. Continually declining science scores, and their only answer is "MOAR CREATIONISM!" The rest of the world's science community is laughing at us and cheering the continued dumbing down of our education system, which will only benefit them.

But no, they don't realize it. Academia and intelligence are vilified in the conservative narrative, as is the media. It's a very effective manipulation, allowing their voters to either outright reject or simply ignore facts that run counter to their agenda and campaign slogans, ensuring that whatever their representatives say (read: anything that ever came out of Sarah Palin's mouth), they're perceived by the sheep to be right despite any and all evidence to the contrary. For example:

Quote :

How misinformed are Republicans about world affairs? If presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's assertion that Russia is "without question our number one geopolitical foe" is any indication, then the answer would appear to be very.

A new poll supports that theory.

The poll, constructed by Dartmouth government professor Benjamin Valentino and conducted by YouGov from April 26 to May 2, found that fully 63 percent of Republican respondents still believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded in 2003. By contrast, 27 percent of independents and 15 percent of Democrats shared that view.

. . .

There is no reality-based argument that Iraq actually had WMD, after extensive searches found none, but this is hardly the first time many Americans have been certain of something that simply wasn't true.

A Washington Post poll in September 2003 found that nearly 70 percent of all Americans were convinced that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- even though he was not.

Bush, Cheney and others consistently linked al Qaeda to Hussein in speeches they gave in the run-up to war, and the media rarely pushed back. But neither Bush nor Cheney continued to claim that there were actual WMDs in Iraq once the searches came up empty -- although they both continued to insist that Saddam had the "capability" to produce them.

Rather than a failure of the media, therefore, this latest poll result seems to indicate a refusal -- unique to the modern Republican Party -- to acknowledge facts.

According to this poll, an even larger proportion of Republican respondents who said Iraq had WMD -- 64 percent -- said they have either always believed (or have come to believe) that Barack Obama was born in another country, which he was not.

Overall, the poll found Republicans to be considerably more militaristic in their worldview than Democrats and independents.

Iraq had WMDs, and anyone who tells you otherwise is just a liberal elitist or part of the liberal media. It's all just a conspiracy, don'tcha know?

Horrifying and effective.

The good news, however, is that the entire thing is a tacit acknowledgement that facts hurt the Republican Party. And to those not already in its thrall, it's pretty obvious.