So, what do we do?
One approach is to listen to that segment of the population and do what they want. It’s what the GOP has been doing for the past 20 years, and it’s called “pandering.” As bad ideas go, it’s right at the top of the list.
We shouldn’t do what these folks want. Their ideas are really, really bad. We shouldn’t even satisfy their desire to be heard by discussing their ideas seriously in the public square. They’re so bad that even treating them as serious options is dangerous.
What should we do, then?
Turn them into people with better ideas.
Public education has reached a terrific level of suckiness in this country. We have an illiteracy rate around 20%. Real working class wages have been declining for a generation. The gap between rich and poor is increasing. The quality-of-life gap between the college educated and those with a high school diploma or less is enormous. Too many girls have to foreshorten their prospects because they get pregnant. Both too many and not enough boys have to foreshorten their prospects to support their new families.
We’ve got millions of poor, ill-educated, low-esteem Americans, whose resentment of the rest of us and sense of being left behind grows daily. In my opinion, justifiably. Want fewer Palins and Plumbers? As the counter-insurgency folks say, drain the swamp.
Tags: illiteracy, poverty in America, teen pregnancy, underclass, working class
July 16, 2009 at 11:29 pm |
I like it. The bad news is that there’s an awful lot of swamp.
July 17, 2009 at 8:21 pm |
Among their many other sins, the right wing power structure has been assaulting education for decades. Do you think the absurdity of NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND is an accident? The population fringe on the right is what they are, largely out of ignorance, and a lack of critical judgment skills. The right wants to keep them that way.