Are Republicans dumb?

While many Dems have accepted that the democratic process works, that they ran a good campaign but more people prefered Bush, there seem to also be a lot who are going with the whole Republicans are dumb school of thought.

I don't really feel like fisking this article, both because reading it makes my stomach hurt more than usual, and becase it's so out there it's like trying to fisk the Chronicle of the Elders of Zion. But there seem to be a fair number of people who buy into the idea that anyone who voted for Bush is a moron.

I don't think Democrats are idiots. I do think that many do not see the threat of Islamic terrorism as seriously as I do, and I think they are wrong about that. I think many of them believe in social policies that are designed to help people by redistributing wealth, but wind up leaving people worse off in general. I don't think they are driven by stupidity, just that they frequently think with their hearts instead of their heads.

I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million—my relatives are not ignorant, they are just greedy and full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.)

It takes a major amount of chutzpuh to call the other side ignorant, and then accuse them of having "feeling of superiority"

Most of the article tries to draw parallels between the sterotypical redneck who refuses to believe in evolution and the average Republican. I can't for the life of me remeber where, but I've seen an interesting breakdown of the votes for Bush - he got 45% of the Catholic vote, 25% of the gay vote, 11% of the Black vote, ect. Sure, the Dems got more from those areas, but it suggests that the Republican party is a little more diverse than people on the left paint it. As this map shows, even the blue states have a lot of red in them. Even Baltimore City, where something like 90% of the state is registered Dems, went 17% for Bush.

Some liberals can't seem to grasp that Republicans aren't just guys named Bubba who drive pickups and enjoy shooting. They are small business owners, college students, mothers, veterns, secrataries, and a host of other people of various economic backgrounds, who live in lots of different places. As long as they fail to grasp that, they have no chance of winning the presidency, because when they paint Republicans as dumb, people in the middle - those who like aspects of both parties, those who are religious, ect - start to feel that the Dems are way too left and out of touch for them.

One more line:

The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do—they prefer to be ignorant.

Not wanting the government to tell you what to do isn't ignorance - it's freedom. And when the government tells you what to do, it's not democracy.