As IF Times

Just recently, Gavin Newsom, a presumptive candidate for President, stated in front of a crowd of a predominantly black audience in Georgia that he too was a poor student.  “I am like you, I’m a 960 SAT guy, I can’t read”.

One, it’s bald faced pandering at best and two, an incredible insult to the audience at worst.  All of sudden, other Democrats such as Bernie Sanders have also stated that they can’t find their birth certificates and he would be denied the right to vote if new voting laws were enforced.

This may explain a lot of the constituency of the Democratic Party and their historical record of pushing the most low IQ legislation while in office.  Let’s take Newsom at his word that he’s illiterate and functioning at a suboptimal intellectual level. Why would that make him suitable to run a nation? When you consider the bench of the Democrats; the various bar tenders, illegal immigrants, social workers, DEI appointments and those that have never held a job outside of government, it’s a wonder that the nation still exists.  How could anyone with no real world experience, slick hair or not, be allowed to control the direction of the largest nation in the world?

What it tells you is that pandering to people low on intellectual fuel is a winning strategy. As the graphic above shows it’s a strategy that will continue to be reinforced in order to maintain a complaint electorate.

Contrast this to an exceptionally brilliant and driven personality such as Elon Musk.  This man is the Horatio Alger of our time. He came from nothing, got an education and began to pursue his vision. Not for self-aggrandizement, but for the future benefits to humanity. He failed numerous times, spent his own money on his adventures, not just OPM and continues to push the boundaries of human capability.  He is more than Alger, he is really the Copernicus of our time, pushing against accepted orthodoxy and laying the foundation for truly remarkable scientific pursuits by others.

And yet in the school systems, they are actually reducing the expected levels of achievement for students so as to not cause distress to those less capable.   While the top universities in the world are still populated by the big name US schools, the constituency of attendants are revealing.  At MIT for example, the graduating class of 2028 is expected to be 47% Asian, 37% White/Caucasian and 11% Hispanic.   Statistics also show that 11% are foreign students. With the competition so strong to get into such institutions, it’s a fair bet that students won’t get there by simply following the watered down education in their formative years.  So we can see that higher learning is still desirable at the top end schools.  But the vast majority of students who never make it to the Ivy league schools will be products of a watered down education…and hence malleable to convincing narratives.

Which is why it’s easier to understand the willingness of the general public to bring into office, people who are demonstrably substandard in their abilities.  This can only be attributed to tribalism, a theme we’ve touched on before.  Tribalism seems to be a bigger pull for people than logic. We can see this on a national scale in the nation once known as Canada. Despite the conspicuous destruction of so many of their once honorable institutions, a large irrationally tribal contingent continue to support policies implemented by governments which are clearly self-destructive.  But as long as it’s not American, it’s good.

People like Elon Musk and Gavin Newsom represent the polar opposites in society.  One is driven by self-determination and by looking forward towards what humans can achieve and what could be, while the other exists by entitlement and looking to sell people what should be. Sadly, the education system is churning out way more followers than visionaries.

link Black conservative tea party backers take heat.

An interesting and unexplored angle in U.S. politics.  Lost among the on going love affair with U.S. president Obama are an unexpected group of Americans who do not subscribe to the policies put forth by his administration.  Some conservative Black groups oppose the initiatives pushed by the Democratic agenda and some dare to be members of the upstart Tea Party political movement.  This of course is viewed with disdain and contempt by the mainstream black community, an overwhelming 95% of whom apparently supported Obama and the Democrats in the last election.

While it’s natural to support those that may represent your best interests if only through accident of  appearance.  it’s actually the epitome of dumb.  Think of all the brylcreem white guys who voted for John Edwards.  Think of guys like Blagojevich, the ex Illinois governor; what if the Polish community came out to support him despite his alleged indiscretions? In the 70’s the Democratic party pushed Carter into office with the constituency of the South supporting him.  As history now shows, he is widely regarded by objective pundits as heading the most disastrous administration in U.S. history, at least up to now.  When a person is elected to the highest position arguably on the planet, their constituency is everyone, not just the demographic slice to whom they belong.  The notion has been fed to everyone through school that achievement is about abilities not appearance.  If this were not the case, why bother going to school?  Unfortunately, the realities of life and the pull of tribalism apparently exert a stronger influence on people than they would care to admit. 

Can it be that in comparing the policies of the Obama platform that the 95% of blacks that voted for him have all independently decided that his vision is the best for everyone compared to not only the Republican candidate, but also the Democratic contenders?  If so, then it leads to two possible conclusions. 

One, the black population favors the policies proposed by the president to a degree that non blacks don’t or don’t see.  If Obama’s  policies are considered to be beneficial to the entire population, wouldn’t that translate into similar showings of overwhelming support by other constituencies?   Does this mean that there are issues affecting blacks that have not been addressed by all previous administrations? If so, would enactment of such policies be negative for the population at large?

The second conclusion is that support was given to this president solely because of his skin color.  The black conservatives referenced in the article are publicly pushing back against this expectation. Their position is that the man’s policies are wrongheaded and will drive the country down an unsustainable financial road.  The fact that he happens to be black is irrelevant.  Such a position is apparently at odds with the majority of vocal blacks.  It’s as if the conservatives are self loathing and need to be condemned.  In fact the opposite is true.   Critical thinking drives these people more than a nominal allegiance to skin color.  People should scrutinize the careers of  Maxine Waters, of Charlie Rangel and certainly people like Rep Hank Johnson of Georgia who famously expressed concern that the island of Guam would capsize like a rubber raft if too many people went there.  Do these people really deserve the support of intelligent people?

Political discourse in the U.S. has become a spectacle of tribalism on a large scale much like fans at a sporting event.  Those who don’t fall in line with your team completely are the enemy and vilified.  Imagine if Sean Penn decided to run for office and his constituency en masse decided to support him.  If nothing else, we would see the actual size of the crazed, self deluding idiots of the country.  Would it make sense to support his vision solely because he was white?  Years ago, the ex wrestler Jesse Ventura ran and succeeded in attaining political office.  I had no idea there were so many ex wrestlers with brain damage who would support him.  Thankfully, he was voted out after one term.  Can anyone take this guy seriously today?

As the old saying goes, people eventually get the government they deserve not necessarily the one they want.  The other bit of wisdom is from an old communist turned capitalist, Deng Xiao Ping who famously observed, “it doesn’t matter what color the cat is, as long as it catches mice’.