Political Journalist Does Blog Stuff [LOS ANGELES]

American Anti-Intellectualism and the Establishment: A Special Relationship

Anti-intellectualism put us here.

The more Americans read, the more we’d understand. But naturally, some systems depend on the public’s lack of understanding. So these systems created distractions, making use of America’s affinity for flashy entertainment. And they won.

Now, America’s presidential debates utilize the same sound effects and fanatic coverage as its televised sporting events. Books are “stupid,” according to every high schooler’s Facebook profile page ever. Facts and logic fall far behind belly-fire and edgy attitudes in the citizen’s pick for office. Americans demand to know which candidate is bold enough to stand up to the establishment.

What we often fail to recognize is what caused these candidates to succeed in becoming options at all — they created and comprise the very establishment we despise. The establishment that has become so expert in gaining power has also become expert in knowing exactly what we want to hear, and wrapping it in just the right package to appeal to today’s concerned American.

It’s been a long time since America’s had a genius president. It’s been a long time since brain-power topped the list of reasons to support a candidate. In America, the establishment decides who to sponsor, what they’ll stand for, and what they’ll do in office once they win. George W. Bush and Barack Obama sure seemed pretty different four years ago, didn’t they? Now, it’s clear that their policies that affect us the most are identical — and not surprisingly, so is most of their campaign donor lists.

Are you tired of working hard to promote a choice candidate that ultimately serves to disappoint you? Are you tired of making excuses for poor representatives you really used to believe in? Then let’s take a lesson from this mess.

We should know better by now than to trust any candidate backed by millions of special interest dollars. Those special interests aren’t yours or mine, and they don’t belong in the political arena. They’re the interests of a small group of people so extremely wealthy, it would be impossible for most any of us to save up a year of their salary in our entire lifetime.

Don’t hate rich people. They’re people, in the club for a variety of reasons. But please, take the time to look into how a candidate answers questions, and compare them to facts, logic, and what you know you know. Do this, or we will all pay the price for our ignorance.

The special interests profiting from the recession have little pressing desire to fix these problems they created. We have to. The vast amount of data on the Internet can help us form educated opinions on issues where both parties have failed.

Knowledge used to be power. We can use the Internet to earn that power back again.