US AND THEM THE PEOPLE: Matching the Others, dumbness for dumbness!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2021

The lovely shall be choosers: We started the week with a set of claims by an unnamed cable news star.

In fact, that star was Rachel Maddow. Last Wednesday night, she offered pleasing characterizations of a rather large array of citizens who had testified in public meetings in Anchorage, Alaska.

The people in question had appeared before the Anchorage city council ("the Anchorage assembly") to speak in opposition to a proposed mask mandate. Maddow pleasured "us the people" with these remarks about "them:"

MADDOW (10/13/21): So the Anchorage assembly meetings, we watched hours and hours of the streaming footage from those meetings, and the anger and the overt threats not only were sort of surprising and hard to watch, but did seem to build on each other over time. 

[...]

Despite the threats of violence hurled at Anchorage assembly members by the public, despite that intimidation, I should tell you the Anchorage assembly just passed the mask requirement for indoor spaces in Anchorage. Their vote was 9-1.

According to Maddow, she and her staff had watched "hours and hours" of the assembly meetings. For longer excerpts from Maddow's remarks, see Tuesday's report.

"It very quickly got very hairy," the cable star somewhat weirdly said, referring to lengthy public meetings which had, in fact, taken place over the course of quite a few nights. 

That said, she offered us the people our usual bedtime comforts. At several points, she referred to the "overt threats of violence hurled at Anchorage assembly members" by them the people—by The Others, the lesser breed, the people who live Over There.

But how odd! When Maddow aired four examples of these overt threats of violence, her four examples were oddly lacking in explicit threats of violence! Assuming that we might be seeing a replay of a type of tired old con, we watched several hours of the hearings ourselves.

In the several hours of tape we watched, we saw no threats of violence. What we did see may have been worse. The dumbness, the rudeness, the sense of grievance, how hotly and dumbly they burned! 

When we watched several hours of those meetings, we saw an array of American citizens who often seemed to bring little to the table in terms of the skills of productive citizenship. But then again, that's pretty much what we frequently see when we watch The Maddow Show on the corporate "cable news" channel.

No, Virginia! We didn't see overt threats of violence ("intimidation") when we watched several hours of videotape from those Anchorage meetings. Almost surely, that explains why the alleged examples Maddow aired, based upon "hours and hours" of evidence, were such flimsy examples—why they didn't seem to be spilling with such "scary" overt threats.

What we saw may have been worse. All too often, we saw testimonies we would regard as overflowing with a type of unhelpful dumbness. But then, that's what we see when Our Own Rhodes Scholar sells us the car most nights.

Question: Can us the people match them the people, dumbness for dumbness for dumbness? We're prepared to say that we can!

We're prepared to say that we can—and we're willing to say that we do! Having said that, there's one major difference in the serial dumbness our own tribe brings to this war.

Our self-impressed tribe's purveyors of dumbness often hold advanced degrees from Harvard or even from Yale! They've "been to the finest schools," as the poet once put it. Some have even been sold to us as Our Own Rhodes Scholars!

They're pampered and they're lavishly praised. They've been lavished with every advantage.

That said, they reek of entitlement as they lug their useless degrees around. Also, they can match The Others dumbness for dumbness—and they do so each day of the week.

Go ahead—we dare you! Watch several hours of those assembly meetings—and as you do, think about the future of the republic. 

We think you'll see a lot of people whose comments may not make much sense—people whose sense of grievance is often as wide as all outdoors. 

What you won't be seeing the "overt threats of violence" Our Own Rhodes Scholar happily sold us. By the way, is there any way we can hasten the process by which she leaves the air?

The tribal war now roiling the nation pits the eternal Them against the eternal Us. Concerning the rival lineups, consider this:

The figureheads of us the people groan beneath the weight of their advanced degrees. When them the people spoke in Anchorage, a different demographic appeared.

That said, our figureheads can match their lessers dumbness for dumbness for dumbness. And the  dumbnesses emitted by our tribes are perfectly evident to theirs.

Destructively, the dumbnesses our leaders emit help define The Way We Look to Others. If there's a way out of this growing mess, we sure don't know what it is.

Friend, are you able to see the dumbnesses which prevail within our tribe? Tomorrow, we'll discuss the ugly, arrogant dumbness described in yesterday's carefully reasoned essay by Eric Levitz.

In his carefully reasoned essay, Levitz was strikingly polite to our own tribal miscreants. Those people spill with degrees from the finest schools—and yet, they can match the little people dumbness for dumbness for dumbness.

Our dumbnesses fill our tribal newspapers every morning now. According to experts, our human brains are wired in such a way as to keep us from seeing this fact.

The lovely shall be choosers, Frost once intriguingly said. Within our pitiful failing tribe, the lovely show up with advanced degrees from Harvard, from Princeton, from Yale!

Tomorrow: You simply can't get more entitled. Also, you can't get dumber.

To observe the lack of overt threats: Hours and hours of videotape emerged from the Anchorage meetings. In the several hours of tape we watched, we didn't see threats of violence, overt or otherwise, though what we saw may have been worse.

To access those videotapes, just go to YouTube and enter "Anchorage assembly meetings." You may have to fumble around a bit. That's what we so incomparably did.