Are Voters Really Stupid?

A CNN producer was caught on tape saying that American voters are “stupid as sh*t”.

Is he right?

It depends on how you define stupid.

It’s definitely stupid to assume government can create wealth, merely by spending other people’s money, or by spending money it does not have ($20 trillion and counting).

It’s stupid to assume Social Security and Medicare – which already pay out infinitely more than they take in – can sustain themselves, especially as the Baby Boomers come of age. It’s stupid to evade that these programs, if operated in the private sector, would have been shut down for fraud long ago with the disingenuousness and deceit baked into them from day one.

It’s stupid to assume that by soaking the rich with more taxes, you’ll create more wealth, jobs and growth, especially since the rich are the only ones with capital – and skin in the game — to invest in business, or loan to other businesses.

It’s stupid to assume that a fiat currency dollar backed by politicians rather than by market forces, such as gold or silver, can sustain itself forever, particularly when you wouldn’t let most of those politicians near your children because of their lack of character and sincerity.

It’s stupid to think that the national debt does not matter because, if it didn’t, then why don’t we simply increase it into infinity and just give everyone a billion dollar annual income? I’m waiting for a candidate to suggest something like that, and I believe that candidate may get half the vote or more. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has already hinted at it.

It’s stupid to think that government and politicians can somehow be reformed or made rational when we’ve given them untold sums of other people’s money to spend freely, according to their own whims or the whims of those who pay them off.

It’s stupid to think government can protect us from destroying the planet when government is full of insolvent, unscrupulous and unsavory people, most of whom never have and never could earn an honest dollar in their lives, while it’s only the cool honesty of science and the vested rational interests of private ownership capitalism that got us this far.

It’s stupid to assume that rights come from government—whether the government consists of religious or secular authorities—when, in fact, liberty — along with the self-responsibility that accompanies it — constitutes our sovereignty as individual human beings.

I don’t assume any Democratic voters are smart, by my definition. And I honestly don’t assume that all Trump or Republican voters are, either. So in a weird way, the CNN producer may be right, at least about half (or more) of America’s voters.

But something tells me this isn’t how he meant it.