https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(film)

Donald Trump is going to be elected president.

The American people voted for him a long time ago.

They voted for him when The History Channel went from showing documentaries about the Second World War to “Pawn Stars” and “Swamp People.”

They voted for him when The Discovery Channel went from showing “Lost Treasures of the Yangtze Valley” to “Naked and Afraid.”

They voted for him when The Learning Channel moved from something you could learn from to “My 600-lb Life.”

They voted for him when CBS went from airing “Harvest of Shame” to airing “Big Brother.”

These networks didn’t make these programming changes by accident. They were responding to what the American people actually wanted. And what they wanted was “Naked and Afraid” and “Duck Dynasty.”

The polls may show that Donald Trump is losing to Hillary Clinton, but don’t you believe those polls. When the AC Nielsen Company selects a new Nielsen family, they disregard the new family’s results for the first three months. The reason: when they feel they are being monitored, people lie about what they are watching. In the first three months, knowing they are being watched, they will tune into PBS. But over time they get tired of pretending. Then it is back to the Kardashians.

The same goes for people who are being asked by pollsters for whom they are voting. They will not say Donald Trump. It is too embarrassing. But the truth is, they like Trump. He is just like their favorite shows on TV.

Mindless entertainment.

But suspicion and hatred of the educated because they have that, or of the “smart” simply because they are that way, gives the real dunces away immediately. Its what poker players call a “tell”. It reveals those who feel the need to disparage intelligence and education because they lack one or the other, or both, and it just makes them feel better if they can “prove” how “worthless” it is. “See, I don’t need any of that pointless book larnin’. I have common sense (whatever the fuck THAT is).”

Education can’t make you more intelligent. All it does is give intelligent people the chance to talk to other intelligent people, hang out with them, and be taught by them. It also gives them the ability to learn the thoughts of others, directly or by reading, and to practice using that wisdom by discussing it against still others. But most important, it allows one to have access to the wisdom of the past by allowing one to read the thoughts, from all over the world and for thousands of years, of those who have contributed to man’s body of knowledge. When a book written by a dead man a long time ago is still read today by many people it tells me that maybe, just maybe, that old dude may have had something worthwhile to say. I may not be obligated to take his advice, but I should have the respect to listen to what he’s talking about. Maybe I’ll learn something….

That’s what scares me most about Trump. Not that he isn’t smart. For all I know he may be very intelligent, just as I suspect Adolph Hitler was. What scares me about Trump is that his followers believe he’s stupid, in the exact same way they are. They want him to be stupid. They like stupid, it gives them an excuse to blame the “smart asses” and “wise guys”, the “smarty pants” or the “intellectual and media elites” for all their problems. They are happy that they believe Trump is stupid, that he is just like them. It makes them feel that, finally, one of their own is in charge because he’s telling them exactly what they want to hear.

You don’t have to be educated, or even very intelligent, to be able to see that. And if you can’t see it, you’re not only stupid (which may not be your fault), but you are proud you’re stupid, which is most definitely your fault. And you will most definitely be skewered for it, sooner or later. Right in the ass. Preferring not to know something has never been a very good policy, because what you don’t know WILL hurt you. You can count on it.

Read your history. In Germany, early in the 20th century, everybody knew the Jews were smart, that’s why everybody hated them.

Back at ya-

https://www.facebook.com/TheRealMikeRowe/posts/1260196947323779:0