Stupid: The Strategy

Paul Krugman, NYT

Bill Keller has a strong, stinging column about Republican attacks on the entirely praiseworthy, up to now bipartisan effort to create a Common Core curriculum. (See below.) But I think we need to say more than this:

But more and more, I think Gov. Bobby Jindal, Louisiana’s Republican rising star, had it right when he said his party was in danger of becoming simply “the stupid party.”

First of all, right-wing leaders don’t strike me as being at all stupid (although I have to say that I’ve never understood why Jindal himself has a reputation for brilliance). Incurious, maybe; not given to self-analysis; but not stupid. I never even bought into the notion that GW Bush was dumb; he always struck me as anti-intellectual, but very cunning in his own way.

Now, you might argue that the leaders are catering to their base. Brad DeLong likes to remind us of John Stuart Mill’s dictum:

I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.

(More here.)