A Reminder of where America is heading

So then what part of college is it that Republicans don’t like? The training for advanced jobs? I have mostly heard complaints about liberal agendas ruining America.

Because you’ll put YYYYYYY in power if they can get enough people united in their campaign in blaming XXXXXXX for all of our problems. Actually solving the problems (or having the solutions that will work) is much more difficult than getting put into power. Humans like unite against a common enemy (whether in life, business, government, sports).

I don’t think that’s ever going to change until human nature changes. Leaders throughout human history have been using this trick. It wasn’t just invented by YYYYYYYY.

I am trying to follow your argument. You posted you did not see a disdain for intellectuals but rather a technocracy that appears to celebrate intellectuals. Then you you point out intellectualism doesn’t reside in college. So who and where are these intellectuals that appear to be celebrated?

Just to be sure: you are posting this un- ironically?

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Did you see the fourth chart in the link?

I didn’t scroll that far, but seems like Republicans will check any box they are given on why college is bad. But a few more will pick “because liberal”

That first sentence is at the heart of anarchism.

The blame game as you call it can be number 3 “Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause.” How someone or something is blamed (held responsible for) is important. Determining responsibility protects against future similar bad outcomes and helps determine which resources to allocate to resolve issues. The legal system is built to be objective about determining responsibility so the rule of law remains just and moral. The rule of law is structured so when it is found to be immoral or unjust it can be amended. When a pundit or politician assigns blame without justification, without an assessment of fault, often in the face of contrary evidence you have scapegoating to unite their base, an immoral unjust act to gain or concentrate power. It is not blaming someone it is how blame is assigned that matters.

Determining the cause of a problem goes a long way to fixing the problem in the future. The short term fixes are the easy solutions the difficulty lies in fixing the reoccurring problems that arise from our systems particularly the side or unintended consequences of a system that produces measurable good. Assigning responsibility (blaming) to that “good” system for the bad consequences is fundamental in finding a resolution.

I think that assumes that the process of assigning blame is actually unbiased. What we have today is I blame you and then my investigation centers only around proving you were at fault. It ignores any evidence to the contrary. Also if I fail to prove you were at fault I keep blaming you anyway.

Okay. Examples? I’m not sure what you are referring to.

They’re typically well known public intellectuals for their work in industry (including authorship), government, or NGOs/think tanks, not for being enrolled in college or being in academia. For example Anthony Fauci or Michael Osterholm on COVID, more recently in the progressive sphere you have people like authors Ta-Nehisi Coates and Masha Gessen, or Thomas Sowell on the conservative side with the Hoover Institution. Angela Merkel is a good example of an important intellectual in politics, while Friedman, Stiglitz, Roubini, and Krugman are good examples in economics, and there are various examples like Bill Gates, Christopher Hitchens, Noam Chomsky, Christine Lagarde, George Soros, and Niall Ferguson. While it’s true that a few of these individuals are professors, that’s generally not how or why they became respected public intellectuals. Rather, they’re generally known through authorship and related media appearances, and/or their work in industry and various NGOs and think tanks. Krugman is a good example of this - he didn’t become famous as a public intellectual for being a professor, or for his academic research, but instead for his authorship of books, columns in the NYT, and related media appearances. Pure academics have limited public intellectual appeal, generally speaking. If you want pure academics, sure, go look at colleges and universities. If you want celebrated public intellectuals, you’re going to look more broadly elsewhere.

Okay. I see what you are getting at. Considering what you posted here doesn’t it seem that this post “Imagine conflating college and intellectualism in 2021. LOL do people really think like this?” is a bit dismissive with regard to a post linking to polling data regarding views on higher education. The poll does relate to one aspect of intellectualism as you admit.

Here is a great example of my problem. What does Senator Rick Scott think about inflation and the problems it is causing right now? He thinks it’s a goldmine for Republicans because it is going to win them elections.

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I posted the other day how many smiles there were on Fox News when they discussed inflation.

I did not see liberal media cheering on the empty toilet paper aisle in 2020 as a Trump failure. Most people understood there was a pandemic that really messed up a lot of things. I am not sure why they think it is no longer messing up things.

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Yep. Great example of scoring political points instead of looking for a solution.

Of course, in this case, there really isn’t much real “blame” to be assigned. Unless Scott is an idiot, he knows that Biden isn’t causing the current inflation. Also, there isn’t any great short term “solution”.

Scott knows that a certain percent of voters simply blame the party in power whenever things go wrong, and he plans to ride that wave of ignorance.

(That said, I think this is a lousy time to pass a big spending bill unless it is 100% funded by new taxes. That’s actual substance if we’re talking about inflation a year or two down the road.)

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Ron points out that Republican base has been taken over by conspiracy theories around vaccines, the 2020 election, and CRT, and Trump ditching any comment about vaccines is an indication that this base is now influencing the messages of the Republican leaders. Is this really where Republicans are headed, or is it still just a passing fad where a few of the loudmouths are controlling the conversation?

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“Yeah, but we NEED these loudmouths in order to win!”

At what point are they no longer the loudmouths, and are the platform?

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What platform? They have admitted that they have none.

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America First. (details on who is American and how they must behave are to be inferred from the people shouting it loudest.)

Their 2020 platform was “do what trump says and make democrats cry”.