If I had a Bitcoin for every time since the 2016 election I heard someone say, “I didn’t know Idiocracy was a documentary”, I could easily run for president or do literally anything else I wanted to for the rest of my time on earth. Alongside other bumper stickers on tailgates leading up to that memorable 2016 election, was one that read – Giant Meteor 2016. By the end of Hillary and Donald’s second debate, that meteor arrived in the form of Ken Bone. Mr. Bone, for those who have repressed memories associated with the election in order to wake up in the morning, was America’s favorite undecided voter who took part in that town-hall format debate. It was Ken Bone, rather than any serious policy issue that captured the public’s attention in the following days. Yet, the public continues to whine about political conspiracies and corruption while failing most every civic obligation. Forget being informed, voting, or public service – even many that claim association with the “party of law and order” have become scofflaws. Still, once dignified conservatives continue to go along with Trump’s transformation of law and order into what could more appropriately be branded Law and McOrder. One presidential term later, it’s now clear that the 2006 cult-comedy Idiocracy marks a waypoint in the slow-motion deterioration of the American system of government.

Yes, politics may be McBoring and McConfusing, but golly it matters. Apparently, if something goes McWrong with politics, all kinds of other things can go wrong. Having been at war for the better part of the first two decades of the 21st century, wars which the public largely had little time for, whether fighting, figuring out why we were fighting, or how we would achieve victory, many Americans have recently developed a pre-occupation with politics, one that is Biggie-Sized – loaded with empty calories that are devoid of life-giving nourishment and ultimately leaves its consumer feeling drained, sick, and in the end, closer to systemic collapse of the vital organs – be them of the body or the state. But this is a Wendy’s sir, no wonder everybody is angry and pointing fingers at each other. Even Bill Maher, who makes a living talking about politics, suggests that Americans should stop discussing politics. What exactly is there that is left to do? If discussion cannot mend whatever divisions exist, hasn’t democracy by definition failed? Somewhere, someone has quipped, “but America is a republic and not a democracy”, and that person needs to give themself a latte. We need to think different thoughts and ask different questions, McCitizens.

Are walls hard or soft? Would the answer to that question be a fact or an opinion? Would any group of people not capable of quickly and reasonably answering such questions be capable of preserving the planet’s oldest democratic state? If you asked one of the Founders, they would certainly have offered windy expositions on their strongly held positions on such matters, which would have been informed and backed by multiple sources of philosophical wisdom and historical examples throughout the centuries – at least on the matter of preserving a democratic state. But boring trash like well-reasoned-thought stands no chance against the ceaseless barrage of glittering fun spewing forth from every glowing smart-device circa 2022. The people have spoken and they want entertainment and fun. 

What does the solidity of your walls have to do with politics anyway? Well, for one, it’s something you can safely run some at-home research experiments on. In other words, it’s an empirical question – one that can be observed, investigated, and weighed on the merits of the verifiable evidence available at the moment. In this case, my walls appear to be solid as I cannot pass through them without breaking them and when I knock on them a noise can be heard as if two solid objects have struck one another – a much different outcome from when I knock on my water. Despite what theoretical physics videos I have watched on YouTube suggesting that solid materials such as walls are actually composed of sub-atomic particles buzzing around, I still cannot pass through them like I would a stream of water. Perhaps with some elaborate combination of meditation and positive thinking I could harmonize all my electrons and other stuff with the wall’s electrons and stuff and break on through to the other side, but I’m still waiting for that YouTube tutorial or a government program that makes it possible. The real question here is – can we even know things, or is everything, (particularly here regarding politics) simply a matter of opinion? 

By now, some readers might feel uneasy at the suggestion that it is indeed possible to know things about politics. Such an idea is elitist. “I can know whatever I want to know and no one is going to tell me I don’t know what I want to know” – they say. This is what Jose Ortega y Gasset referred to as, “the right to not be reasonable”  in his work, The Revolt of the Masses. The “reason of unreason”, according to Gasset, emerged for the first time in the western world under the fascist regimes of the 20th century and created a character in the citizen that, according to Gasset, “does not want to give reasons or to be right, but simply shows himself resolved to impose his opinions. This is the new thing: the right not to be reasonable”. Gasset, concerned that the massive improvements seen throughout the 19th century in the western liberal world had been taken for granted by the 20th century and thus lead to

“spoiled masses…unintelligent enough to believe that the material and social organisation, placed at their disposition like the air, is of the same origin, since apparently it never fails them…they are only concerned with their own well-being, and at the same time they remain alien to the cause of that well-being. As they do not see, behind the benefits of civilization, marvels of invention and construction which can only be maintained by great effort and foresight, they imagine that their role is limited to demanding these benefits peremptorily, as if they were natural rights”. 

Back to the 21st century in America where a blank stare and dead silence is interrupted with, “pop quiz hot shot – how do you actually know about politics?”. Any reference to Aristotle or Plato here is hopeless as a default preference for Hannity and Playdough handicaps the interlocutor, as they are far more economically lucrative than anything the former have to offer. Sadly, this is how the modern incarnation of the conservative party of the world’s oldest democracy reliably finds know-nothing bimbos to hold its highest position in elected office. It turns out the primary object the conservative party has been working so diligently to conserve for at least the last four decades has been the ignorance and obedience of their base. 

A real conservative, in contrast, would instead work to preserve the institutions, ideals, and the best practices of the past in order to move into the future thoughtfully. Simply put, they would work to conserve liberal democracy. This is a point that even Robert Bork seemed to appreciate, however reluctantly, in his 1996 book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and Cultural Decline. Though Bork struggles with what adjective to place in front of liberalism, be it radical or sentimental, he clearly concedes that classical liberalism is at the heart of what actually made America great to begin with. Bork writes that, 

“‘Modern liberalism’ may not be quite the correct name for what I have in mind. I use the phrase merely to mean the latest stage of the liberalism that has been growing in the west for at least two and a half centuries…nor does this suggest that I think liberalism was always a bad idea. So long as it was tempered by opposing authorities and traditions, it was a splendid idea…the sentiments and beliefs that drive it…liberty and equality…produced the great political, social, and cultural achievements of Western civilization, but no ideal however worthy, can be pressed forever without turning into its opposite.” 

Liberalism, rather than a mental disorder or a radical agenda that seeks to undermine everything good in America, was actually a core founding ideal. It’s no surprise then, that this centrally important concept has even found support, however unconsciously at times, on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum through libertarianism. If it’s not clear how, get drunk and look at the words liberalism and libertarianism for a bit until you notice some similarities. Liberal is not an anti-American word, if there are such things. If you’re an American citizen, you’re a citizen of a liberal democracy – like it or not. Though the word has come to mean “weak or gay”, it’s more accurate to say that it refers to an individual’s freedom to be weak or gay. Thus it finds its way into the right wing’s lexicon of personal freedom, even if only hiding in a libertarian closet. 

So what’s going on? Why are we so stupid and who should we blame for how stupid we are? With endless high quality information readily available at the touch of a button, we nonetheless continue to drink Brawndo and create a reality worse than the one imagined in Idiocracy – if only because this one is real and not imagined. There may be hope though. Right before the 2020 election, our friend Ken Bone, announced for the first time who he voted for in 2016. Bone tweeted that, “I voted Clinton in ’16 and this morning I sealed my mail-in ballot having voted for Jo Jorgensen. I don’t agree with either of them 100 percent but felt they’re the best options available to me at the time”. Never mind, Ken Bone still just doesn’t get it. Things will never change if we keep voting for losers. The only thing dumber than voting for a loser, though, is voting for a loser, watching them lose, then convincing yourself they actually won and then fighting to have said loser re-instated for the next year of your life even if it means dying and thereby ending your life – all for a loser. 

Perhaps letting the general public choose the president was a dumb idea to begin with. George Mason, though ostensibly an advocate for individual rights, argued this point at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 on July 13 as recorded in James Madison’s notes on the convention. Objecting to the popular election of the president, Mason argued, “it would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief magistrate to the people as it would to refer a trial of colors to a blind man. The extent of the country renders it impossible that the people can have the requisite capacity to judge of the respective pretensions of the candidates”. For snobbish reasons such as, the average person lacks the proper judgement, the founders established a constitutional process to keep ordinary people far removed from choosing a president. Maybe the founders were know-it-all elitists, but they sure seemed to know lots of stuff about history, human nature, and government. If the years following the 2016 election have taught us anything, it is that we all need to become a bit more modest when it comes to thinking we know stuff about stuff. More importantly, confidence is never a sufficient substitute for competence. Heck, even the most enlightened public intellectuals are reluctantly modifying their positions on topics like UFOs due to developing evidence. 

But for folks that continue to indulge Donald Trump’s every whim and absurdity, please know he has long outlived his utility as a pawn of the conservative beltway. He signed a tax cut and successfully nominated a whopping three Supreme Court Justices. Though that’s not nothing, he has nothing left to offer but further embarrassment and disgrace. There were aspects that were good about his service. It is now, for instance, impossible not to notice that there is an unavoidable political crisis – that the sky is falling and that it is also on fire. Now the public just has to learn how to do politics in the 21st century or just simply allow the American experiment to burn to the ground on their watch. This is no simple task with no simple solutions. As developments in neuroscience further reveal how unconsciously we reason, it will be even more important for the electorate to cultivate an independence of mind, to not simply go along with a political movement because it feels good, is fun, or entertaining. Remember, politics and government involve crafting and enforcing the laws that we all live under, which, if done prudently, leads to human flourishing and if done foolishly can lead to all sorts of misery including pandemics, surges in crime, war, and, eventually the total decay of the institutions that hold society together. 

The American political system will not and cannot be saved by a charismatic wise guy or any other political savior offering a return to since-passed glory-days or utopian futures. If anything changes for the better, it will require an honest public dialogue that is guarded from the corrosive financial influence of such a small percentage of the population. McBillionaires, like Trump, are part of the problem – not the solution. It was his gilded position in life that allowed him to live as if on the bumper lanes at a bowling alley. His fame and fortune always insulated from failure, no matter how recklessly and selfishly he lived his personal life or pretended to govern in front of a camera. Still, he managed to take full advantage of millions of well-intentioned people and continues to do so. It’s crucial for the rest of the country to recognize that not everyone who voted for Trump is a racist monster. But it’s hard for them to do when they are just as susceptible to manipulation as their assumed intellectual inferiors on the other side. This, rather than socialism, racism, China, or Russia is the central problem of American democracy at present – that a nearly omnipotent economic class has near total freedom to do anything including buying their children entrance to the college of their choice, buying political influence, racing to colonize other planets, and creating media outlets to play both sides of every political divide, while the rest of the country squander in debt, stagnant wages, and the dream of good-health and the ever-retreating oasis of a comfortable retirement someday. 

Democracy is people-power. It is rule by the Demos, the people. If you want to do something radical, abandon Trump, corporate Democrats, and the big lie that there is an equality of opportunity at present in America. Begin trying to understand alternative political perspectives rather than condemning them with the canned talking-points that are spoon-fed from cynical entertainers in the media whose primary motivation is to grow their personal fortunes. As perhaps one of the most clear-eyed observers of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote during his tour of the country in the 19th century, “I found very few men who displayed any of that manly candor and that masculine independence of opinion which frequently distinguished the Americans in former times”. Authentic democracy requires a citizenry capable of dialogue, deliberation, and enough independence of mind to not be swept away with mindless nonsense. Americans once possessed these qualities when they read books instead of memes. But don’t take it from me or Tocqueville, watch president Not Sure’s brief but poignant speech at the end of Idiocracy and then recall when Donald Trump bragged about acing a cognitive test. Though Trump may identify as a “very stable genius”, he consistently shows through words and actions that he is still as confused as Ken Bone ever was about American politics and government.