Excerpts from The Trump Diaries: Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest

There is an anti-intellectual trend in America but the reasons are interesting.  Donald Trump’s first cabinet, while not the cause, certainly sealed the deal.  The turning point was not when it was clear that Donald Trump as a blatant liar, that was expected of most politicians although Trump took this to new and pathetic levels.  The turning point happened with Kelly Ann Conway’s remark.  When pressed during the interview with Chuck Todd to explain why [Sean] Spicer would “utter a provable falsehood”, Conway stated that Spicer was giving “alternative facts”.  

This was the invitation for every rightwing conspiracy and opinion to consider itself on equal grounds with logic, rationally thought-out speech, science, and intellectual expectations.  Every opinion became an “alternative fact”.  In other words, if the facts didn’t fit your ideology, it was the facts that needed to change.  This, of course, opened the door to the religious right as well.

Anti-intellectualism is nothing new in America, being centuries old, but the expectation by Donald Trump and his minions to be respected intellectually as equals no matter what the facts are, is.  They stand toe to toe with Christian nationalism for this reason perhaps?  Donald Trump the Republican party, and its cronies offers simple, ignorant answers to complex problems: “I know best” replaces the more sound “I don’t know”.  And “I am right” trumps objective reality.

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