Fear the Idiotocracy

There are many legitimate concerns that we are drifting - perhaps plummeting - toward autocracy.  Certainly Donald Trump’s declaration of dictatorial intent is a flashing warning sign. 

There are also legitimate concerns of a steady drift toward theocracy, given the majority Catholic leanings on the Supreme Court and the unfathomable influence of Christian nationalism and evangelicalism on American politics.

And there is the reality of our partial plutocracy, where monied interests exert explicit and implicit control over nearly every aspect of our lives.  This has been true for many years, but on steroids since the Citizens United ruling legitimized corporate bribery.

But these various “ . . . . cracies” are dwarfed by the irreversible “cracy” taking hold in the nation today:  Idiotocracy.

The most visible manifestations of Idiotocracy are found in the Trump phenomenon, best exemplified by the man himself.  The man is disgracefully, remarkably, irredeemably, frighteningly ignorant.  He is intellectually illiterate, astoundingly incurious and bereft of even cursory knowledge of the government he disdains.  His supporters are an enthusiastically compliant flock, having all of those traits themselves.

But those potshots are too easy.  The greater Idiotocratic threats to our formerly democratic republic are found in the steady assault on fact and reason within various public and private institutions.  

A recent example is in the dual SCOTUS cases that show the Court prepared, once again, to demolish decades of precedent by shattering the so-called Chevron Doctrine.  Without getting too far into the weeds, the Chevron Doctrine essentially requires that the implementation and interpretation of regulatory statutes give deference to the expertise of civil servants and others with scientific training and experience.   In other words, scientists should make environmental and other judgments rather than, say, Lauren Boebert.  But the arguments this week seemed to point toward the Boebert approach.  

The money behind the assault on Chevron comes from Charles Koch and his oil and gas buddies, who are regularly rankled by pesky experts who point out that they are making the planet uninhabitable.  Why should they or anyone else defer to the lifelong experts at the EPA when Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar and all the other Rhodes Scholars they bought in Congress can better interpret complex statutes?

The perpetuity of the Idiotocracy is the project of the assault on education.  Here too, folks like the Koch Bros. and other billionaires like the Waltons, are hard at work creating an endless supply of useful idiots for the Idiotocracy by letting one generation of low information customers choose low or no-information schools for their children.  The vast majority of school vouchers, for example, are used for religious schools, many of which deny climate change, deny evolution and often have only one textbook - and you can guess which one.  

The Idiotocractic assault on education aims to produce more citizens - if you can call them that - who emulate Nikki Haley and erase slavery from the list of Civil War causes.  The very successful Idiotocratic attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion have even convinced some Democrats that we don’t need no darned affirmative action and let’s just judge everyone on their SAT scores.  

The Idiotocrats use the “who could argue?” language of parental rights to dumb down school libraries and curricula.  Here, as with the dismantling of the Chevron Doctrine, marginalizing the wisdom, training and experience of real educators is the point.  Who, after all, is better equipped to decide what is taught in schools: an actual teacher or a parent from the Westboro Baptists, who knows that God kills soldiers because of them gays?  I exaggerate only very, very slightly.

There are multiple dimensions to the right wing threats to our republic.  Backlash to decades of racial progress, gay rights and women’s rights animates a great deal of contemporary conservative politics.    

But the Idiotocracy capitalizes on another reality of the MAGA enthusiasts.  For many decades - perhaps for all of time - a large slice of the American pie has been comprised of people who are tired of the eggheads and damn snooty folks in their Ivory Towers telling them what’s what.  Nothing new there, but their bitching used to be confined to the back fence, the local bar or the four-wheeler club (don’t take offense - I’m sure there are a few Bernie Sanders four-wheelers).

But now the Idiotocrats hold power.  The Supreme Idiot was president and may be again. The GOP side of Congress is riddled with Idiotocrats and the rest of their seats are filled by cowards.

It is the Idiotocracy we should fear most because its growing influence will enable the autocracy, the theocracy and the plutocracy.   When asked what kind of government we’d been given, Benjamin Franklin famously responded, “A democracy, if you can keep it.”  

Not looking so good.