About 30 percent of American citizens (aka Trump supporters) —and maybe lots more—are as dumb as a bag of inbred hammers.
From a recent (2013) Vanity Fair article, citing a poll taken by Public Policy Polling, ranked by Fordham University as the best out of 28 organizations for the accuracy of its national pre-election estimates.
Twenty-six percent of Americans either believe that Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ, and is preparing for war with the Messiah or aren’t sure that he isn’t. 26 percent also believe that the government puts fluoride into drinking water not for dental health but for “other, more sinister reasons,” as the P.P.P. question read. It was all a communist plot, you see, to do . . . something.
Fifty-four percent of Americans—either believes that childhood vaccinations cause autism or aren’t sure whether they do. Never mind that study after study, including one just released by the Centers for Disease Control, say this belief is uneducated malarkey. Why should anyone consider that when we have former Playboy model and B-movie actress Jenny McCarthy disagreeing? Yes, that is where we are: Americans are more likely to believe a nursing-school dropout than PhDs from America’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning.
Forty-nine percent either believe the college dropouts and billionaires or aren’t sure if they should—that global warming is a hoax. Not simply that scientists are in error (which they aren’t) but that they have orchestrated the most expensive, wide-ranging, and mind-numbing fraud in the history of the world, just ’cause.
Once again, it’s the PhDs versus college dropouts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Sure, there are a few scientists—almost never climatologists—who cast aspersions on the idea that all the melting ice and record temperatures in the world might have something to do with the planet getting warmer. But when the vast, vast, vast majority of scientists—including one hired by the Koch brothers, the multi-billionaires with a financial interest in poo-poohing climate change—have concluded not only that the phenomenon is real but that it is being triggered by man-made pollutants, perhaps doubters should set aside their doubts.
But the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world have done a great job convincing Americans that climatologists have entered into this massive, incomprehensible conspiracy to fool the world that there’s a problem. The reason, they say, is that climatologists are doing it for the money, so they can continue to live in their climatologist mansions and drive their climatologist Ferraris. (For the 26 percent who might not get it, that was sarcasm.) Meanwhile, the people who selflessly fight for Americans—the billionaire industrialists and oil-industry magnates—speak only truth because, you know, they have no financial reason to suggest climate change is a fraud. After all, they have dedicated themselves to a modest life so they can advance the truth, residing in their tumble-down, billionaire shacks and driving their billionaire 1994 Chevys. (Once again—sarcasm.)
If a doctor said you had stomach cancer, would you consult Rush Limbaugh for a second opinion? Of course, that sounds like nonsense, but many Americans have no qualms about listening to political commentators and untrained activists when it comes to even more complex scientific questions. In essence, the greater amount of training it takes to understand something, the more likely, it seems, that Americans will turn to people with shallow knowledge for guidance.
Take vaccines and autism. The entire idea started with a horrific, fraudulent study in a 1998 issue of the Lancet. Click on the link to the abstract, and you’ll notice the large, red word “RETRACTED” across it. The reason is that the study has been deemed a fraud. Not a single legitimate study backs the idea. But the McCarthys of the world march on, true believers who are simply unqualified, frightening Americans into believing their children are safer if they have no protections against deadly disease.
The untrained assault on climate change is the same thing. Consistently, political commentators will say such things as “there’s a blizzard! Global warming is fake!” without any understanding that there is a huge difference between weather and climate.](http://www.nasa.gov/missionpages/noaa-n/climate/climateweather.html))