General Discussion

True, but they were targeted for their stupidity and harvested for their votes by the very people who shipped their jobs to 3rd world countries. It was an evil, but brilliant plan. It was modeled on the evangelical "Christian" grifters and perfected by Madison Avenue and "hired gun" behavioral scientist consultants.

And before them were the European fascists backed by monied interests, here and abroad. Remember, Hitler and his Nazis didn't take their absurd arguments (which many, if not most, understood were absurd) to the universities and libraries where they would be ridiculed and laughed at. They took them instead to the beer halls where they knew that they would find fertile ground among the uneducated and "dull". But there is one thing that the 20th century fascists and the modern republicans both knew/know well and that is: In a democracy, votes are "fungible". a vote from an uneducated "useful idiot" counts just as much as a vote from the most intelligent and informed person in the country. And those "idiot" votes allow them to seize power and loot the wealth of the nation. It's really not much more complicated than that if you "boil it down" to its essence...