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Educated Republicans Act Stupid to Connect With Their Voters
I’ve come up with a new phrase to describe the habit of educated Republicans pretending to be stupid. I call it “performative stupidity.”
Since a large chunk of the GOP’s base is anti-science and pro-conspiracy, you have this strange habit of Ivy-league educated Republicans, such as Sen. Ted Cruz and FOX News propagandist Pete Hegseth, pretending to be ignorant.
Cruz recently got the coronavirus vaccine but refused to wear a mask, even though people still can get reinfected. Their logic seems to our voters are ignorant, so we have to pretend to be dumb too. Of course, in the cases of ex-President Donald Trump, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-Colo.,) they’re not pretending.
You can also see this in the habit of Republicans casting doubt on vaccines’ efficacy while secretly getting it. FOX News owner Rupert Murdoch received the coronavirus vaccines from the British state-run healthcare system. But he allows white nationalist poster boy Tucker Carlson to spout anti-vaccine propaganda.
“So all of this should prompt some pretty tough questions for our public health experts in this country. And one of those questions is, how effective is this coronavirus vaccine? How necessary is it to take the vaccine? Don’t dismiss those questions from ‘anti-vaxxers,’”…
