Pandering to the stupid
I wanted to write something in response to the vice presidential debates last week, but I didn’t have much to say about the actual content, and just kept returning to an almost impossible to articulate sense of revulsion. (I’m sure a lot of people feel that after listening to Sarah Palin, though.) Watching news coverage and SNL clips over the weekend, I began to hear the cause loud and clear. In the debate, Palin said, “One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let’s commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again.” (Well, maybe not so clear, but still.) Joe Six Pack. She’s saying that in order to get “average people” on her side.
Hockey moms, I can understand. It sounds a little less trite than “soccer moms,” and it reminds everyone just how tough people are in Alaska. They’ll take a body check over a slide tackle any day, you betcha. But “Joe Six Pack” — I almost can’t believe it. Wasn’t that a derisive term, not so very long ago? Urban Dictionary defines it as “Average American moron, IQ 60.” Webster’s explains the etymology as “from average ‘Joe’ watching TV with a six-pack of beer” and points out the usage is “derogatory slang.” The term is found in the Wikipedia entry on John Q. Public, which notes that “Roughly equivalent, but more pejorative, are the names Joe Six-pack, Joe Blow, and Joe Schmoe….” We’re talking about a person whose defining qualities are a beer in hand and a low IQ. Is the McCain-Palin ticket actively trying to paint this picture of their supporters — and of typical Americans?
It’s not just about the general public, either. On conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt’s program, Palin recently declared, “It’s time that [a] normal Joe Six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think that that’s kind of taken some people off guard… we put government back on the side of the people of Joe Six-pack like me….” We’re supposed to be voting for the McCain-Palin ticket because Palin is herself a Joe Six-pack. Do they even know what this term means?
Maybe people really are identifying with this rhetoric. But let’s not encourage them, please! Low intelligence and perpetual inebriation should not be glorified, and should certainly not be held up as desirable qualities in a politician. Americans working blue-collar jobs — well, really all Americans, since this is about us everyday, regular folks, and who isn’t? — should be insulted when they are described in this way by someone purporting to represent them and their interests. It’s belittling; it’s basically a synonym for stupid.
Even if you are intellectually disengaged and proud of it, you should at least be able to acknowledge that in order to have a functioning government, your leaders should be slightly more informed and engaged than you are. Politicians who call you stupid probably shouldn’t earn your vote. But a politician who brags about being just as stupid as you? That should really be a no-brainer.
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Wow… I was becoming alarmed by the fact that no one actually caught on to the “Joe Sixpack” reference for what it is. A celebration of ignorance and mediocrity.
The nefarious ‘elite’ is now defined as anyone who thinks or reads or subscribes to the idea that in order to hold a position of power one should actually be informed.