On March 14, Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke announced his candidacy for President of the United States in the 2020 Presidential election.

The former Congressman from Texas (2013 – 2019) had no sooner announced his candidacy that Fox News host Brian Kilmeade attacked him.

Vanity Fair had published a profile on O’Rourke, in which the writer noted that he had a “huge library.” 

“As if it’s a big plus that he reads books,” scoffed Kilmeade.

Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke

His comment echoed that by former “Godfather’s Pizza” CEO Herman Cain during the 2012 Presidential race: “We need a leader, not a reader.” Thus he excused his ignorance for why President Barack Obama had intervened in Libya.

And on April 4, Tucker Carlson, another star commentator on Fox, offered this gem: “How did we wind up with a country in which feminists do science? I mean, isn’t that sort of bound to get a study like this, right?”

He was referring to a study by Dr. Aaron Brough of Utah State University on how gender norms reflect buying choices that, in turn, affect the environment. He found that both men and women associated doing something good for the environment with being “more feminine.” 

Brough and his team call this deeply-held unconscious bias the “Green-Feminine Stereotype.”

Carlson didn’t ask a scientist or climate-change expert to dissect the study’s conclusions. Instead, he interviewed Mark Steyn, a Right-wing author. Steyn joked that his insecurities about his masculinity “are causing rising sea levels in the Maldives” and that he was “kind of on board” with the study’s thesis.

Tucker Carlson

Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D

For Carlson, “climate science was all about ice core samples” and not Walmart gift cards. 

For Steyn, “climate science is a state of mind” and the “big bucks” are in surveys where you “decide what’s heating up the planet is men.” 

All of which reflects an almost monolithic disdain by Republicans for education generally—and science in particular.

During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Republican Presidential candidates celebrated their ignorance of history and current events.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin rewrote history via “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”:

“He warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.”

Actually, Revere  was warning his fellow Americans about an impending British attack—as his celebrated catchphrase “The British are coming!” made clear.

And then Texas Governor (and now Secretary of Energy) Rick Perry showed pride in not knowing there are nine judges on the United States Supreme Court:

“Well, obviously, I know there are nine Supreme Court judges. I don’t know how eight came out my mouth. But the, uh, the fact is, I can tell you—I don’t have memorized all of those Supreme Court judges. And, uh, ah—

“Here’s what I do know. That when I put an individual on the Supreme Court, just like I done in Texas, ah, we got nine Supreme Court justices in Texas, ah, they will be strict constructionists….”

In short, it’s the media’s fault if they ask you a question and your answer reveals your own ignorance, stupidity or criminality.   

President Donald Trump has gone even further in celebrating ignorance. At a campaign rally during the 2016 Presidential race, he infamously said: “We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated,”

As President, he has attacked the free press as “the enemy of America” for exposing his lies and criminality. And while he repeatedly scorns legitimate mainstream news media, he often seeks guidance from ego-stroking Right-wing shills at Fox News—who often prove as ignorant as he is.

By contrast, President John F. Kennedy insisted on being well-informed. He speed-read several newspapers every morning and nourished personal relationships with the press. These journalistic contacts gave Kennedy additional sources of information and perspectives on national and international issues.

White House painting of JFK

During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, about the events leading to World War 1.

He said that the book’s most important revelation was how European leaders had blindly rushed into war, without thought to the possible consequences. Kennedy told his aides he did not intend to make the same mistake—that, having read his history, he was determined to learn from it.

Republicans attacked President Barack Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”

And they resented his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. As if being a writer is somehow subversive.

When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline lies just around the corner.