George Monbiot
How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind?s closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist?
Simple, it’s because the intellectual stance taken by much of the Right is that intellectual stances are intellectually suspect and should not ever be trusted intellectually. I do hope this clears things up for our puzzled friends in other countries.
Richard Hofstader said it all in 1963 in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.
I’m guessing governments and people across the planet are now optimistic that those crazed Yanks will be ending their eight year Highway to Hell on November 4 by electing a highly intelligent, non-ideologue moderate as president.