Soy Huevon...

... So I'm just going to recycle some online discussion for today's post.  My work week is over until Monday, so I promise to write something more substantial tomorrow.

Anyway, a number of people have linked to this clip from the Jimmy Fallon show, which finds that a surprising number of Americans object to "Obamacare", but not to the "Affordable Care Act," even though those are merely different names the same legislative package.  One of my Facebook friends did, remarking "Do you think an informed citizenry is essential to a democracy? Er....."; and one of his other friends linked to this clip, which apparently (I haven't watched it yet) shows that some "Obama supporters actually hate Obama's policies."  That wouldn't surprise me; I've often pointed out that many vocal Obama supporters have no idea what his policies are.  ("He stopped the wars!"  Not.)

I commented: I don't deny that many Americans are horrifyingly ignorant about our history, our government, and our elected officials. I get my nose rubbed in that ignorance every day. (Though even more, as someone once said, the trouble isn't that people aren't ignorant -- it's that they know so much that isn't so.) But I've been thinking again: I see Democrats calling the Republicans idiots a lot. But suppose that's so: what does it say about the Democrats, including Obama, that those "idiots" keep beating them, over and over again? It's a popular line in many action/horror movies, that the villain says that Good is weak and ineffective, while Evil is powerful and effective, and so will triumph in the end. The Democrats are oddly ready to agree with and confirm that claim, it seems to me (though only if I agree that Democrats are good, which I don't).

Also, as far as I'm concerned, the only real impediment to an informed citizenry is the laziness of the citizenry themselves. People love to complain about how the Media are sapping their precious bodily fluids and all, but I call bullshit. What we need to know is out there, but no one is going to hand it to you -- in fact, wanting to have it handed to you is why we're in trouble now.

Not long after I wrote that, another friend posted a quotation from the liberal comedian and soft-edge satirist Andy Borowitz: "I wasn't happy about the country being controlled by the richest one percent, but I really hate it being controlled by the dumbest one percent."  Which provided a good example of the complaint that the "idiots" are winning.  My friend objected when I said so, saying that "I really don't think the idiots are 'beating' Obama and the Democrats in the present instance." This, in the middle of a US government shutdown engineered by the "idiots!" I linked to Derek Thompson's recent article which pointed out that although Republicans lose various battles, over the long term they've been winning the spending war -- the Democrats keep caving in to their demands.  That's leaving aside the fact that Obama is in close agreement with the "idiots" on many important issues, disagreeing only on a few social issues.

Someone just commented on my comments that the Republicans win because "they're generally the favorites of people with lots and lots of money."  Which doesn't affect my point, since it indicates that "idiocy" is no obstacle to accumulating lots and lots of money; and ignores the fact that the Democrats also take in lots of money from the rich.  Obama raised more money than his opponents in both 2008 and 2012, much or most of it from the wealthy.  That could be one reason Democrats love to accuse the Republicans of idiocy: to divert attention from their own devotion to the wishes of the rich.  I think I'm onto something here.  But I need to blog more, and comment less on Facebook.