Suicide by Stupidity

In the End, Natural Selection Will Get Us All

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In 1859, Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution by natural selection, a concept colloquially known as “survival of the fittest.”

Since the late 1980s, the Darwin Awards have been tongue-in-cheek honors given to people who remove themselves from the gene pool by not surviving their own stupidity.

One famous recipient mailed a letter bomb with insufficient postage. When it was returned to his address, he opened it and blew himself up. This seems the perfect metaphor for those who voted for the United States’ 45th and 47th president, the Naranja Narcissist.

Thanks to decades of flag-wrapped propaganda disguised as news, a (barely large enough) minority of US citizens fell in love with a spoiled-rich-kid-turned-failed businessman-turned-reality-show-phony who claimed to hate all the same people they did, and used him to mail a letter bomb to the rest of us. Now, his inability to do anything other than talk like a schoolyard bully while stealing people’s lunch money has caused their democracy to blow up in their faces.

Unfortunately, the rest of our faces have shared the same fate.

And, just when it is most crucial to mitigate climate change as rapidly and stringently as possible, the Mango Menace has defunded the programs doing so because smart people have been sounding the alarm, and smart people make him feel stupid.

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Not all members of a species evolve at the same rate

Unfortunately, most candidates for that dubious award do not remove themselves from the gene pool quickly enough to keep from endangering the rest of us. And now, our entire species is up for a Darwin Award.

In recent years, a growing number of people around the world have seemed unaware of the definition of a demagogue and the dangers of hitching their wagon to one.

A refresher from Wikipedia:

A **demagogue** is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, especially through oratory that whips up the passions of crowds, appealing to emotion by scapegoating out-groups, exaggerating dangers to stoke fears, lying for emotional effect, or other rhetoric that tends to drown out reasoned deliberation and encourage fanatical popularity. Demagogues overturn established norms of political conduct.

The only way that could be a more complete description of the Persimmon Pustule currently inhabiting the White House would be if rape, pedophilia, and a psychotic fetish for gold spray paint were added to it.

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Are we in big trouble? Yes.

Can we right this ship before it sinks? Maybe.

Can you believe this bumbling convicted felon snuck into the White House twice? Not unless you’re a candidate for a future Darwin Award.

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Call me crazy, but I don’t believe his MAGA base is solely to blame for this easily avoided travesty, and here’s why: Less than a third of the country voted for him or ever believed he was anything but a lying grifter. The problem wasn’t only the less than one-third who bought his sideshow act; it was the more than a third who believe all politicians are pretty much the same and didn’t bother to vote.

That’s like believing a head cold is the same as stage four cancer.

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Who looks at Lex Luthor and sees Superman?

As I see it, there are four main groups of supporters of the Tangerine Toddler, which I’ll list from smallest to largest:

1. Very rich people who care more about their taxes than starving children who didn’t ask to be cannon fodder in a handful of billionaires’ personal video game
2. Neo-Nazi racists horny for the good ol’ days of an all-white Christian patriarchy (like terrible pop music, there seems to be no way to permanently rid any country of racism, sexism, and queerphobia)
3. Darwin Award candidates who are easy marks for a carnival barker (pity their lack of cerebral horsepower)
4. Honest folks who believed the propaganda they’ve been exposed to for decades via Fox News and the like, and think they are protecting the country from what were always imaginary threats designed to keep 85% of the world’s wealth in the hands of 10% of the people.

The modern world’s barrage of disinformation seems to have created a climate in which even normally intelligent people can fall prey to absurd conspiracies. And that’s the point. When a society is barraged with lies mixed with half-truths, people no longer know who to trust, which way is up, or what direction to face. That’s fertile ground for demagogues, and they’ll water that garden with new lies all day, every day to keep it growing.

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Rugby and communists

To the rest of us, the nonsense commonly believed by some ultra-right-wingers seems indicative of someone who has used their brain as a rugby ball and forgotten to put it back into their skull when the season was over.

Before believing that progressives are “communists who hate America” (according to the Crimson Carbuncle’s July 4th speech in front of Mt. Rushmore), you should first define communism: A government that controls business, education, political speech, TV comedians, the media, and economic opportunity, with only a small handful of wealthy, powerful men in control.

Funnily enough, that accurately describes the direction the US has been racing since his Obfuscating Orangeness was inaugurated. And any idiot should be able to see that those are the things progressives hate, not love, and we don’t call that “America.” We call it Putin’s Russia.

Meanwhile, the same MAGA-hatted voters who supposedly fear communism admire Russia. Be careful, you could hurt yourself trying to figure that out.

Pitchforks and hurt feelings

Psychologists have long tried to figure out what causes large groups of seemingly ordinary people to suddenly consider their neighbors and fellow citizens enemies of the state, pick up torches and pitchforks, and follow a demagogue into Hell. It is often concluded that their anger comes from feeling sidelined by the elite and made to feel stupid.

Here’s a hard fact we must all face: If you are waving a torch and a pitchfork and following a malicious, bigoted moron, smarter people might notice and say something. Sorry about that.

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Phony hurricanes

Which brings us to the incredibly convincing hoax we progressives call “climate change.”

Climate change deniers think the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists are only pretending it’s a real thing to irritate smarter people like my brother-in-law, who spends his time lurking around QAnon message boards and X, lives in a van down by the river, and voted for the Apricot Assfruit.

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I suppose they also believe scientists are sneaking up to the Arctic at night with hairdryers and melting the glaciers as a prank on conservatives. Many are probably also still denying the connection between smoking and lung cancer, which I believe is its own category in the Darwin Awards.

Let’s face it, this mess is everyone’s fault. We think of ourselves as the smartest mammals ever to shit in the woods on this planet, but we act more like the kids who break all their toys before noon on Christmas morning. We’ve been gifted this amazingly diverse planet to live and thrive on, and we trash it in the name of temporary gratification and profit. Can an entire species be a victim of the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

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At this point, you probably think I’m a hopelessly cranky asshole shouting at the internet to get off my lawn, but that’s not my whole story. I believe the energy we generate comes back to us, so I’m trying to build good karma by keeping my thoughts and actions positive.

But I’m no Buddhist monk, and it’s really goddam challenging. I have to admit that if negative thoughts about others can bring bad karma, I’m screwed.

Summary judgment

In the end, I suspect most of us are doing what we think is right, based on what we think is true.

And there’s the culprit: If so many people weren’t being convinced of lies — such as progressives hate America, immigrants are criminals, scientists are liars, and Epstien’s closest human-trafficking-party buddy isn’t far too mentally and emotionally disabled to be trusted with a pair of grown-up scissors, much less the nuclear codes — maybe we wouldn’t be so quick to use each other as target practice and set fire to our planet.

All members of a species don’t evolve at the same rate, and it may be millions of years before everyone catches up, but I can’t help hoping that all of these unevolved idiots will develop some critical thinking skills and stop ruining my karma!

Oh, crap, there I go again. I’d better balance that out by doing something communist and hateful like protesting fascism or serving soup at a homeless shelter.

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