An Unsettling Hypothesis

Many historians believe that Ibn al-Haytham, who lived in present-day Iraq 3,000 years ago, was the world’s first scientist. He invented the pinhole camera, discovered the laws of refraction, and studied natural phenomena such as rainbows and eclipses. 

And if he lived today, he would be the subject of at least two dozen conspiracy theories and get death threats daily on Facebook.

You see, we Americans are not too fond of science. Oh, we take advantage of its benefits and breakthroughs — everything from the internal combustion engine to aspirin to the internet. But we don’t actually like the concept.

And our disdain for smart people in lab coats has gotten worse since the pandemic, which is not a surprise considering that millions of people still believe that both the virus and its vaccine are hoaxes or government plots.

According to a recent survey, the percentage of Americans who say science has a “mostly positive” effect on society is at 57%, down a staggering 16 percentage points since before the pandemic. And 8% of us think science has a “mostly negative” impact on society. I guess those people are Luddites, Amish, or mad scientists who have seen the error of their ways.

Now, as you can guess, trust in science is not the same across the political spectrum. Republicans have “less confidence in scientists and the benefits of science than Democrats.” In fact, fewer than half of Republicans (47%) say science has a mostly positive effect on society. That’s disturbing enough, but consider that back in the pre-pandemic days (if you can even remember them), about 70% of Republicans had a positive view of science.

That’s an enormous drop-off in such a short amount of time. It further illustrates that the Republican Party’s descent into ignorance has been rapid and decisive. These are people who once thought science was admirable, but they have jettisoned their logic and reason to fall into line behind their mad emperor, who despises people smarter than him.

It also shows how paranoia, fear, and distrust are the GOP’s favorite states of being. There is no such thing as a fringe theory in the modern Republican Party. For example, anti-vaxxers used to be pariahs. But now they are conservative leaders.

Now, this should end the debate over whether Republicans are anti-science. Yes, many liberals have made earnest pleas to respect different points of view and not insult conservatives. This is well-meaning nonsense.

Republicans are basically shouting, “We hate science.” There is no ambiguity here.

For example, the Texas Board of Education, which Republicans lead, recently rejected proposed science textbooks for schools because they contained “too much information about the climate crisis.”

In other words, there was too much science in the science textbooks.

The Republican-majority education board also objected to the textbooks because they “included teachings about evolution but not creationism.” As we know, conservatives “have long pushed textbook publishers to present pseudoscientific concepts like ‘intelligent design’ as equivalent to well-established scientific theories.”

But it still takes a startling amount of chutzpah to say, “If you don’t teach my religious hokum alongside your well-established scientific facts, I will ban your textbook, and I’ll tell you straight to your face that this was the main reason.”

Is that anti-science enough for you?

The disdain for science has filtered down through conservative leadership to the general populace. Currently, a plurality of Americans believe that God created humans, with evolution having no role at all.

Denying evolution is not an indicator of a well-educated society that respects science.

Speaking of evolution, the latest scientific tidbit that I have found fascinating is the work of ecologists who studied “the unequal distribution of birds and other species” throughout America. They found that the patterns of birds revealed “the impact of bigoted urban policies adopted decades ago.”

Science can reveal a lot to us. If we don’t kick it to the curb first.

Lessons

If your favorite phrase is not “Fuck around and find out,” it should be.

This pithy warning marries the vulgar and profound, the practical and the metaphysical. It also covers a dizzying range of human misbehavior.

Drank too much at the party? Invested in a shady start-up? Asked a rude question? Cheated on your spouse?

In all cases, you know what happened next.

In 2016, America elected a president who was euphemistically called a “political neophyte.” More honest observers referred to him as “total nutjob who should not be allowed to even visit the Oval Office as part of a tour group.”

He led the nation into chaos, death, and economic calamity.

We fucked around and found out.

Now, eight years later, millions of Americans want to take another chance on this unrepentant disaster. These voters are either racists, love authoritarianism, or have suffered grievous blows to the head that have caused massive memory loss.

Maybe these people should heed warnings that their preferred candidate is such a threat to democracy that major media outlets are publishing entire issues analyzing all the ways that his election jeopardizes the nation’s continued existence.

On the other side of the political aisle, maybe Democrats should not be so lackadaisical about the votes of young people, African Americans, and Latinos. Maybe party leaders shouldn’t be so chill about polling that shows their candidate is trailing in multiple demographics, and is leading only among middle-aged suburban dentists in blue states. 

For that matter, perhaps the Democratic Party should realize that their last two candidates have been the most hated woman in America and the oldest person to ever run for president, respectively, offering voters the most uninspiring of choices for three straight elections now.

But no, the Democratic Party seems determined to fuck around and find out.

Future generations of Americans, if there are any, will be mystified that so many theoretically rational people saw catastrophe looming on the political horizon and then, rather than fight it, either accepted it with a shrug or enthusiastically embraced the madness.

These young Americans, struggling to rebuild a shattered nation, will ask why we didn’t do more. They will question our intelligence, morality, and sanity. They will beseech us, in tones that alternate between angry and perplexed, why we insisted on fucking around and finding out.

And we will have no answer.

The Vote

This will be a very special year. Because it will be our last one.

Well, at least it will be our final year as a functioning democracy if a certain bigoted crime boss / cult leader wins the election this November.

Recently, media outlets have caught on to the fact — at long last — that an insane autocrat will be the Republican nominee for president, and he stands a decent chance of becoming the leader of a government that he tried to violently overthrow. 

Of course, he could not do this if millions of Americans didn’t think it was a good idea to support a narcissistic lunatic who almost destroyed the country when he was in charge. But it’s not really about the racists, conspiracy nuts, and authoritarian lovers who make up the GOP base.

As everyone knows, this election will be decided by that tiny sliver of undecided voters who are torn between a competent but uninspiring octogenarian and a slightly younger guy who faces 91 felony charges in four different cases and who once suggested that Americans drink bleach.

Yes, it’s a real fucking coin toss. Should they go with the man who dodders a bit or the raging misogynist whom dozens of former staffers, aides, and cabinet members say is a direct threat to democracy?

What’s an undecided voter to do?

Recently, the Washington Post looked at this strange demographic. In their article, they profiled an indecisive voter from my hometown of Milwaukee. The man truly didn’t know who to vote for, but he added that he thinks Trump is “hilarious.”

I must admit, I didn’t know that “hilarious” was a legitimate criterion for electing the leader of the free world. But even if it were, I fail to see the hilarity in a deranged old man who spews nonstop insults, lies, and hatred, interspersed only by delusional boasts about how great he is. It’s not exactly the foundation of a tight five for a solid standup act. But maybe I’m just not in on the joke.

And speaking of jokes, let’s consider the Electoral College.

Be honest. If you were building a country from scratch, would you even consider such a tortuous, bizarre, illogical, antidemocratic mechanism?

This “18th-century system — which is unlike anything used by the United States’ 21st-century democratic peers” is a preposterous contraption that “empowers a sliver of the U.S. population in a diminishing number of battleground states.”

In a nation of 330 million people, presidential elections now come down to “about 400,000 people in three or four states,” resulting in an infuriating farce where “more and more people feel that they don’t have a say.”

It also means that an easily persuaded guy in a battleground state who has no principles, concern for others, or awareness of real-world consequences — but who finds a particular candidate “hilarious” — has far more say than you do about whether or not an aspiring despot takes over the nation and grounds our society into dust.

Yeah, I’m still waiting for the punch line.

Joining the Club (Part 3)

Recently, I wrote about the surprisingly large percentage of women and Latinos who want to join the GOP in its crusade against, well, women and Latinos.

To conclude this trilogy of terror, let’s look at people who support Christian nationalism, even though they are not Christian.

Of course, you might say that the Republican Party is not officially a religious organization. However, about two-thirds of the GOP, and virtually all of its leadership, is Christian. So it is fair to say that a certain theology guides the organization. 

And if you doubt this, consider that “more than half of Republicans believe the country should be a strictly Christian nation.” In addition, GOP leaders routinely exclaim that they want to eliminate the separation of church and state, and the Republican speaker of the House boasts of being a Christian warrior.

All that is not terribly welcoming to other religions. In particular, Jews might be alarmed that so many Republican leaders have the unfortunate tendency of hanging out with Nazis.

But the war in Gaza has convinced many Jewish voters that the GOP supports them, even though much of that backing is due to a weird biblical belief of some Christians. It involves Armageddon and forcefully converting Jews (seriously, this is a thing).

Conservatives are eager to bring Jewish voters into the GOP tent. So they have painted campus protests as seething cauldrons of antisemitism, full of Jew-hating young progressives. Of course, some progressives have made this an easy sell by embracing vile, antisemitic nonsense.

So a Jewish person rightfully repulsed at a liberal saying positive things about Hamas is more likely to consider the Republican Party, despite that party’s intention to turn America into one big mega church where everyone worships Jesus or else.

Now, there is another reason why many Republicans profess to love Jews. And that is because many of them hate Muslims even more. This is the party, after all, that wants to ban Muslims from ever setting foot in the country. This is the party that clamors to eviscerate Palestinians and turn Gaza “into a parking lot.”

But even in this case, Republicans will temper their Islamophobia if they can find someone to despise even more. For example, some conservative Muslims “have joined forces with right-wing Christians in a bigoted crusade against gay and trans literature in public schools.”

Yes, the “forces who supported a president who called for a Muslim immigration ban are now, through a shared hostility toward gay and trans people, uniting with local Muslims … to demand the imposition of ignorance.”

It just goes to prove that no matter how much a group is oppressed, many of its members are just fine oppressing others.

And speaking of homophobia, remember that the most recent GOP platform called for a ban on gay marriage. State-level branches of the Republican Party have gone even further, with the Texas GOP declaring that “homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice.”  

But the obvious loathing that the GOP has for homosexuality hasn’t deterred the 17 percent of gay people who voted for Trump in 2020. To them, the fact that Christian nationalists would gladly throw every gay person in jail is not an issue. 

Yes, there is likely a gay Latino Muslim immigrant who appears in drag shows but is an ardent Republican. And he probably lives in a swing state.

So we have ethnic minorities supporting bigots, women supporting misogynists, religious minorities supporting Christian fundamentalists, and gay people supporting homophobes. It is festival of self-delusion.

The conservative vision for America is unabashedly narrow, where white Christians call all the shots.

In fact, the Republican Party “is 68 percent white and Christian in a country that is 42 percent white and Christian.” 

Based on those percentages, conservatives need people to vote against themselves.

That’s the only way they win.

Joining the Club (Part 2)

I recently wrote about the women who believe supporting the Republican Party will somehow protect them from the wrath of angry right-wing men.

But now let me discuss an issue closer to home: the rise of the MAGA Latino.

Seriously—what the fuck is wrong with those guys?

Ponder the cognitive dissonance (a phrase that comes up a lot when discussing contemporary politics) that is necessary to justify voting for a man who has repeatedly, gleefully said that he wants to throw anyone who looks like you into a concentration camp. It’s majestic.

Of course, studies have pinpointed three main reasons why someone named Hernandez or Rodriguez would vote for xenophobic bigots.

These include the fact that Latinos still lag in educational achievement, and the diploma gap has become perhaps the chief indicator of whether someone votes Democrat or Republican. Basically, people who go to college are more liberal, and people who stop with high school are more conservative, regardless of race or ethnicity.

Also, male Latinos are more likely to be drawn to GOP misogyny because “if you’re a man in a low-status group, masculinity may become more important to claiming high status.” In essence, a lot of Latino men like the false machismo of Republican blowhards.

Latinas are far less likely to fall for this nonsense, and “like female voters across ethnic categories [they] were repelled by Trump’s disrespect toward women and his bragging about sexual assault.”

Yes, many pundits are still offering “the tortured and narrow analysis that Latino votes for Donald Trump correlate with ‘economic anxiety,’ but reactionary sexual politics and religiosity are usually missing from media commentary on this political shift.” 

The final reason is that many Latinos believe that if they go along with white supremacy, they will soon be allowed into the powerful majority. About a third of Latinos “see themselves as a group similar to European American immigrants who can join the mainstream.” A lot of Latinos think that if Italians and Greeks were eventually considered white, maybe they will be too.

Yes, that’s a sad motivator, but it’s a very real one.

The Republican Party knows this, which is why they employ “language that is designed to trigger racist stereotypes associated with whiteness.” Conservatives are well aware that “this status anxiety is inseparable from this racist hierarchy.” 

And how has appeasing white conservatives worked out for Latinos? Well, the Trump campaign has threatened to create the largest deportation program in history, end birthright citizenship, and install neo-Nazis in positions of power. So they are clearly interested in the needs of the Latino community. 

No, the Republican Party doesn’t care that a record number of immigrants have become citizens, or that young Latinos hate the GOP, or that most Latinos still vote for Democrats.

They know that they just need to chip away at the Latino vote to ensure victory. So they can go right on blaming Latino immigrantsfor mass shootings, shrieking about the “great replacement” theory, hanging out with militant white supremacists, and encouraging white Americans to fear everyone with brown skin.

Because their approach is working. The bigotry and “radicalization of the GOP on the issue of race isn’t sending it down some entirely new, irreversible path of stigma among communities of color.”

They are doing just well enough with Latinos to hang in there. And many Latinos are just fine with MAGA.

Sin vergüenza.