I don't really know anything about Candace Owens. I gather that she's a fairly standard issue MAGA lunatic, but she drew attention recently for parting ways with the Daily Wire following some arguably antisemitic comments. So what's made her so popular?
Theory: The secret to Candace’s success is she exudes at a subliminal level deep confidence while revealing she hasn’t read any books and is wildly ignorant and silly. And her biggest fans find that affirming because they’re know-nothings too. https://t.co/iNXhylLTZR
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) March 25, 2024
This reminds me of a theory I've long held: everyone believes that the intelligence needed for political office (or political commentary) is whatever their own intelligence happens to be.
This is a corollary of the fact that we don't take politicians seriously. The same belief, for example, isn't true of doctors or quantum physicists. Most people are happy to admit they aren't brainy enough for those occupations. But politicians aren't viewed as people who need to know things. They merely need to have political views, and nearly all of us base our political views on emotion, not thinking.
So if your favored politician isn't smart enough to know the elements of the nuclear triad, what of it? If you didn't know it either, it hardly seems disqualifying. In fact, smarter politicians are annoying because they're always trying to explain things and all they do is confuse you.
If I'm watching Jeopardy and I happen to know an answer that no one on stage knows, I immediately think what a bunch of idiots! But if they know something I've never heard of, I immediately think how can they expect anyone to know that??? In other words, the ideal level of knowledge is whatever my knowledge happens to be. It's the same way on the freeway: there are people who drive too fast and people who drive too slow, and I'm the only one driving at the perfect speed.
Politics is the same way. As long as you're not stupider than me or smarter than me, you're fine.
I agree. The popular tendency to distrust expertise particularly in politics has an obvious negative impact. Among other things, it elevates genuine idiots (Trump, Owens) to positions of power and influence; it requires intelligent politicians to cynically pretend to be "of the people," in order to avoid being perceived as an "elite"; and it encourages people to seek out oversimplified solutions to complex problems ("drill baby drill", "build a wall", etc).
I would like to find a way to impress upon the common prole the level of intelligence required to really understand political matters. Not just domain-specific knowledge (like, if you are writing legislation about healthcare, one has to know something about how healthcare works) but also political knowledge (how to compromise, how to cut a deal, how to make sure promises get kept): in other words, to give a glimpse of how the sausage gets made. If we could pull this off, it might help some folks reevaluate the skills required for politics and look askance at pundits who obviously lack them.
Or maybe not, just a shot in the dark.
To follow up on this: what I want is a readable narrative, accessible to the layman, that shows what politicians actually *do*. To continue Kevin's analogy, we sorta know what doctors do: they order tests, interpret the results, select treatments, maybe do surgery, etc. It all looks complicated, so we assume they're smart.
But most people think the job of a politician is just sit around and vote on stuff, and when they don't vote the way we want, we say "What an idiot!" So it would be really great to have someone describe what kind of decision-making and preparation actually goes into it. To describe the *real* reason that couldn't vote the way they wanted to, or why they supported some bill that appears to be contradictory to their goals. This is a tall order, because no active politician would want to pull aside the curtain like this. That's why most political memoirs are full of fluffy vague rhetoric.
I always assumed Candace Owen’s popularity was because as a black MAGA supporter she provided the looney right wing cover on racial issues. Part of me feels sorry for her, thinking the right wing liked her for her intellect, but she remains (like all the other Trumpies) a pathetic individual who sold her soul to the orange satan.
She's also extremely photogenic. If she looked like Maxine Waters, nobody would ever have heard of her.
Exactly. She’s an attractive young Black woman that spews hatred towards black people and tells the MAGA crowd they’re not racist, liberals are just assholes.
I've always preferred politicians that are smarter than me. Unfortunately, they're rare.
Are you sure "unfortunately" is the word you need here?
Why not? Do you think stupid politicians are a good thing?
I'm convinced I have more than enough intelligence and education to perform competently in politics, as do many other people of my acquaintance. What we lack are (a) motivation, and (b) a suitable temperament.
The most dangerous characteristic of the Trump Republican Party, IMHO, is not the widespread ignorance and stupidity. It's that so many of its members are obnoxious arseholes who seem to take pleasure in the pain of non-cultists. Their solution to every problem is to lock some people up, deport them or execute them.
They need "charisma" and confidence. Not many people vote for someone who cannot draw people to them. Having an opinion is the easy part.
Nah. Most of us base our views on the tribe we grew up in. Some of us then had our views challenged and either stuck with our tribe or moved on. And then a few of us chose to examine and work through our values to discern the why.
Most people aren't taught any kind of critical thinking or self-questioning. Instead, it's rote and don't question authority. So when a charismatic politician spouts something that sounds like common sense but just happens to reinforce preformed opinions, well . . .
"Most of us base our views on the tribe we grew up in." I'd call that emotion rather than rational thinking too.
Wait …
“It's the same way on the freeway: there are people who drive too fast and people who drive too slow, and I'm the only one driving at the perfect speed.”
I thought I was the one driving at the perfect speed … (?)
Some comedian (Carlin maybe?) observed “everyone driving slower them me is an idiot, everyone driving faster is a maniac.”
Your theory, if true, is strong evidence that the GOP is the party for stupid people. What else can explain their pushing absolute nonsense policies and ideas that any person of normal IQ can see are hopelessly stupid. Making Mexico pay for the wall? Cutting taxes for the wealthy benefits everyone? Are you better off today than you were four years ago (in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years)? Evangelicals for the least religious sinner to ever run for the office?
That's the thing. Enough of them say that's not literal, of course it's not literal.
That's where the evil creeps in.
It's structural. There are tests before someone can become a doctor or quantum physicist. Tests of knowledge and experience. Politicians? The only test is getting the most votes, intelligence be damned. So it's natural - if not logical - that "politicians aren't viewed as people who need to know things".
The Press could provide intelligence / knowledge tests of a sort, but we've seen how reluctant they are to blow the whistle on dumb-asses. After all, they're entertaining, which seems to be the only criteria they care about.
As a scientist, I prefer the company of people who are smarter than me, at least if they're not assholes --- I'd be comforted with a politician smarter than me. Of course there are dimensions to this, and a politician must have people smarts that I lack. And then one must have a patience for the stupid people (see Kevin's argument) and their stupid ideas.
Agreed. I am a scientist and 99.5%+ percentile by conventional measurements of intelligence. I genuinely like the 99.9th percentilers I know, and stand in awe of the 99.99%+ that I have encountered.
That being said, anything in the top quintile or so is sufficient for politics, given the right temperament. Politicians do not need to be the smartest people in the room or experts on everything. They do need to have a strong ability to understand what expertise is and how to sift out bullmanure that people with agendas will try to pass off as expertise.
“This reminds me of a theory I've long held: everyone believes that the intelligence needed for political office (or political commentary) is whatever their own intelligence happens to be.
This is a corollary of the fact that we don't take politicians seriously.”
This is both a function of Americans taking economic and political stability for granted since it’s existed here for almost everyone’s lifetimes, and also a function of how our electoral and constitutional structure makes it nearly impossible to actually do anything a politician or political party runs on doing once in office. The former means that Americans don’t feel like they need the political system to function well in order to lead a fulfilling life. The latter means that the political system almost never does actually function well regardless of who voters send in to run it.
For example: 80% or more of Americans support some form of gun controls. Even if all 80% of them throw their voting power to elect Democrats, it’s still unclear that that 80% will get workable majorities in both the house and senate to pass reforms. After so many iterations of this, it would be reasonable to conclude “the quality of people sent to Washington doesn’t matter at all.”
So in some theoretical America, in which we all actually did want to send the smartest people to DC, it’s uncertain we would arrive at better policies anyway. We’ve just been lucky that, up until 2016 or so, everything worked out to make the majority of us comfortable, regardless of the quality of politicians we elected. Our luck may finally be running out.
Also:
“After so many iterations of this, it would be reasonable to conclude ‘the quality of people sent to Washington doesn’t matter at all.’”
Tends to mean:
Smart people actively start avoiding running for office, because smart people want to do productive things with their brains, not just sit around and wait for decades to maybe, sort of, solve problems. Smart people have agency and will self-select to not go into careers that waste their time… and our Congress is almost perfectly designed to waste people’s time.
I know I’m not the smartest person in many circles, but I am smarter than the average person, and my mom used to say things like “you know so much about the issues why don’t you go into politics?” And I was like “hell no!” Until she saw Fauci get trashed on TV for being smart, she never understood my point about how “if you’re smart in American politics, you have no future and only will be dragged down by the stupid people for any errors you do make + for any ‘indiscretions’ you have in your personal life.” (I’m gay which is grounds enough for about half of Americans to ridicule or harass me.)
Fauci was director of NIAID for 38 years and is one of the top 10 most cited researchers in immunology. He doesn't have a future because that future happened already!
Your more general point that politics is not something that the average smart person would want to pursue is valid though.
Yes thank you for explaining this to me. Neither me nor my mom thought Fauci had a political future at all. My mom though always thought that smart people would make good politicians. Seeing how everyone on the right shat all over Fauci though changed her mind. She died shortly thereafter, her belief in intelligence saving or improving America in the future gone. (Mine had already been gone for a while.)
George Carlin (I think) observed that, while driving, we regard everyone going faster than us as a maniac, and everyone going slower than us as an idiot.
Probably right.
I think that the model for a politician should be a plumber: they perform an essential service, but their success at it is measured by how little we notice their work.
Instead the model for a politician seems to be a cheerleader.
Which is, of course, also dumb. Every vehicle will ride a section of road differently, based upon how the motors and braking systems work, how its suspension and wheels hold the road, how much of a load it's carrying.
A car with winter tires can stop at least 10% shorter than one without, so it can go faster. A car with a low weight distribution can take corners faster as it doesn't tip as much. A truck pulling a trailer has a longer stopping distance so shouldn't be going as fast. A bicycle only needs to slow for stop signs to loiter for longer than a car at a full stop. A vehicle with advanced suspension will stop and ride over lumpy terrain than a vehicle without... But that vehicle with that high suspension will stop more poorly on perfectly flat pavement.
Every vehicle has its own optimal path and speed curves to have the same level of safety over a given segment of road.
Of course, most people probably have never thought about all the above...
I don't agree. I'm pretty smart in some respects -- top-tier education, regular business success, leadership, etc. -- but I would be a terrible politician. I couldn't get elected, and if I were, I wouldn't the job, and I'd be ineffective at it. I could no more serve in the House than ride a unicycle on a high wire.
There's several different kinds of intelligence, from verbal and spatial to kinesthetic and spiritual. Being a successful politician takes "smarts" that I don't have.
"This reminds me of a theory I've long held ... "
Define "theory." Never mind. I'll do it.
A theory is a confirmed hypothesis. A phenomenon is observed, a hypothesis that explains the phenomenon is proposed, and the hypothesis is tested against the null hypothesis, which is the idea that the phenomenon cannot be explained.
A hypothesis is conclusively confirmed, which is when it becomes a theory, when the test definitively refutes the null hypothesis. Ergo, a hypothesis is either a testable but not yet tested hypothesis, or it is a definitively refuted hypothesis, or it is a definitively confirmed theory.
Here's a theory: Intelligence is not wisdom, and vice versa. Intelligence, like a hammer, is a tool. Wisdom is knowing that the tools we have at our disposal are to be used for creating something of value. "Not-wisdom" is willful ignorance, like when people such as Candice Owens or David DePape decide to use the tools they have at their disposal to hit people that get in their way over the head.
It's easy to see that a person is intelligent if they are wise. Willful ignorance makes it very hard to tell if a person is intelligent.
A person with a Harvard law degree is intelligent. Ergo, and despite appearances to the contrary, Ted Cruz is intelligent.
Theories can still be advanced or replaced. You should only hold them as long as they work, and be aware of where they don't.
The steady state universe was a theory that was long held. Then it wasn't, as it became obvious it wasn't true.
Goldberg absolutely nailed it.
Years ago when Owens was just getting known she had a long appearance on Russel Brands podcast. I watched just to see "who the hell is she, and why do I keep hearing her name".
Within a couple of minutes Brand realized how astoundingly ignorant she was, and that he needed to engage at a much simpler level than his initial attempt. Spent the entire conversation (1.5 hours or so) speaking to her with incredible gentleness and kindness and refusing to engage & fight on her terms. As if she were a special needs child. Even so, she kept trying to fight with him and clearly was incapable of understanding anything that he explained. You could see in his eyes that he was stunned by her ignorance, lack of intelligence and integrity, as well as her complete confidence in her views. I'm not a fan of Brand, but his demeanor to her throughout was one of the kindest things I have ever seen.
I think this is true of right wingers. Not so much of centrists and liberals. Look at the ultra popular Republican presidents over the past 50 years. Reagan. W Bush. Trump. And look at the popular Democrats. Clinton. Obama.
I think it's clear that Democrats prefer to elect candidates who are smart and know a lot and don't feel like they need to hide that. Republicans only like candidates who are demonstrably stupid or work hard to act stupid.
"Republicans only like candidates who are demonstrably stupid or work hard to act stupid."
Not true. Recent Republican POTUSs appear to you to be stupid because of their approach which, like yours, is divide and conquer. The Democrat POTUSs appear to be smart to you because of their "one for all and all for one" approach. People on the far left prefer the Democrat POTUSs because they understand that, when the Republican wins, they'll end up on the "conquered" side.
Wise citizens vote for "one for all and all for one" candidates and against "divide and conquer" candidate regardless of party, which means that they're voting D in 2024.
People on the far left do not vote for any Democrats. Their full time obsession is to attack the Democratic Party.
Not true as a rule. AOC or Bernie are generally considered far left and both have always cooperated with the party establishment (I am talking about how they legislate not how they run for office). There aer idiots on the left as stubborn and uncooperative as any MAGA person. But they are not the rule.
I am not buying this at all. Democratic politicians generally are unafraid to act like intellectuals and talk about details in a knowledgeable way. Republicans are all about the id, the reptile brain. Some are demonstrably stupid, like Trump or MT Greene. Others are Ivy League educated like W Bush or DeSantis or Ted Cruz and work hard to act like dumbasses. I think this is indisputable.
You literally could not find a Democratic politician who is as demonstrably stupid as Greene or Boebert or Trump. And not some idiot anarchist from a Redit thread. I mean an actual elected Democrat holding statewide or national office.
"Recent Republican POTUSs appear to you to be stupid"
I have yet to see any evidence that Trump and W are actually intelligent. And getting elected is not evidence.
I think it's especially true of centrists, even more so than conservatives. Being a mainstream centrist is all about you have charisma in some form, not about whether you have more than a single brain cell.
Adlai Stevenson ran against Eisenhower twice and lost twice. Part of the reason was probably his image as an "egghead." It's not a new phenomena.
"It's the same way on the freeway: there are people who drive too fast and people who drive too slow, and I'm the only one driving at the perfect speed."
On the contrary. I want other drivers to be slower or faster than me. If we were all driving at the same speed, I wouldn't be able to change lanes in heavy traffic because I wouldn't be able to wait for an open space to turn up. (Ever tried trying to make one with a turn signal? You have to SLOW DOWN and let the other drivers get out of the way. Or speed up, which amounts to the same principle.)
Yes, but that's because you clearly spent more time thinking about it than the average driver.
Goldberg does a good job of capturing Candace Owens. And I think there is some truth to Drum's observation that many people want their politicians to be at their own level. But I don't think these things go together. Owens' trick is that she is very confident in her ignorance, so to people who don't know what she is talking about she probably looks like an expert. When she says Ukrainians are not a people because they don't have their own language she says this like she is well versed in information about Ukrainians, and not just spouting Putin style propaganda. Her listeners, who have no idea if Ukrainians have their own language, do not say here is someone who like me knows nothing about Ukrainians. They hear someone confident that Ukraine has no language of its own, and so they believe both that Ukraine has no language of its own, and that Owens is an expert.
Of course her confidence comes from her ignorance, she doesn't know what she doesn't know. This kind of thing is common in college, but one hopes people outgrow it. Her most infamous statement was a defense of nationalism based on the idea that the only problem with Nazism was that Hitler did not keep it within Germany. It probably didn't occur to her that the holocaust started within Germany. That is the ignorance part. Of course once she said it she had to plow forward, because the other half of her schtick is never admitting a mistake.
Of course Ukraine ones have its own language that 88% speak. And having a unique language has nothing to do with whether a people have a culture.
The colonies that became the United States shared language and culture with England, and still fought for independence.
Interesting theory.
Does it mean all Trump voters are complete idiots? yes!
Or, does it mean Trump fans have the equivalent of a Wharton MBA ?
Both. The equivalent of a Wharton MBA is idiocy.
Note that Trump doesn't have an MBA; he has a bachelor's in economics. (David Cay Johnston says he was given the degree. He points to the "gibberish" answer Trump gave when asked, in a deposition, what net present value is.)
I read that he scored a lot of his Business Administration units by working in his father's office. And of course who knows but he probably bought some term papers or paid someone to take his tests in some big lecture class.
Also, the Wharton name denotes only the graduate school of business; the undergraduate program is not covered by it.
I don't need a politician to be smarter or more knowledgeable than I am. I just need them to have the wisdom to hire good advisers who are more knowledgeable than I or they are and then listen to them. Of course that is just a necessary but not sufficient reason. They most also broadly align with my values.
I don’t know how smart you are so I won’t say whether politicians should be smarter than you. But I do want politicians to be smarter than average. You have to be smarter than average to be able to both pick good advisors and also ascertain whether those advisors are giving you good advice. (Otherwise the “good” advisors might have their own ulterior motives and turn you into their puppet.)
The invasion of Ukraine was a revelation to me that Putin is way less smart than I thought. His first stupid mistake was picking underlings for loyalty and failing to realize that that doesn’t correlate to competence. Second, being obviously corrupt and not expecting those beneath you to want in on the graft. Then you find out that the defense budget was buying yachts instead of tanks.
There is a true ring to this theory. However the main problem we face now is the cultish character of Trump's following. And cult leaders are by definition far superior (in almost all respects, including mental capacity) to their followers.
The fact that Trump is grossly ignorant does not change the perception of the MAGA crowd that he is "very smart" and has a "very large brain".
The theory would have applied in say the Clinton era (Clinton had a knack for pretending he wasn't really smarter than regular folks plus a talent to explain complicated issues so everyone understood--as does Joe Biden BTW). But for now cultism is what we need to explain current politics and this theory won't do.
Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar who got himself elected governor of Alabama. I think it took two tries. He learned from experience. But he was raised in a lower tier of society so he had some man of the Southern people thing going on. IOW he understood rednecks.
Arkansas, not Alabama.
I'm sure many of you heard the New Yorker Radio hour over the weekend. Anyway, Adam Gopnik, who apparently has a couple of articles on Hitler up, one old and a newer one, had a good take on fascism.
He actually read Mein Kampf, and was somewhat surprised that it contained almost no policy, just a list of grievances from Hitler not getting admitted to art school to, of course, the list of those who sold out Germany in WWI.
He pointed out that Trump is exactly the same, and that's why when Trump has four years and not only does not even "build a wall" but accomplishes nothing, its not a drawback for his support level because his support level does not depend on policy, it depends on grievances.
Its not "only" that his base are ignorant, they are, but they are, like Owens, willfully ignorant - its not like they have spent any amount of time figuring out policy. They view that (as does Trump) as waste of time. Its more important just to have space to air grievances.
After the episode I was at least thankful that as a Country we are not at the level of grievance of 1930s Germany. Its the only thing that might save us.
What a lot of voters want from a politician is agreement with their own prejudices, which are partly a matter of tribal instinct and partly culture. They want someone who will support the dominance of their own group, not necessarily someone who has the intelligence or other talent to solve common problems. Politicians can succeed by advocating for and ultimately putting themselves at the head of subgroups within a nation. Experiments have shown that people will separate into factions based on any difference, not necessarily as fundamental as race and religion. This has happened all through history.
Everyone is subject to these tribal instincts, left or right, but in the US it has been the Republican party which has capitalized on splitting the country on racial and religious grounds, since the big switch of parties on racism in the Civil Rights era. Democrats sometimes try use class warfare to get votes, but apparently the racial/religious type of tribal splitting is stronger.
Judgement of intelligence or demonstrated capability can be important, but not when people are dominated by tribal instinct. Trump gets votes because he supports the White Christian Tribe, not because he does not show more than average intelligence.
Owens has gone off the deep end.
https://www.mediamatters.org/candace-owens/holocaust-denier-nick-fuentes-celebrates-candace-owens-she-has-been-full-fledged-war
Wow. I had no idea how vile those people are. That's about as low as you can go.
I think the cycle is: as a kid, you think all adults are extremely intelligent and competent. As a teen/young adult, you realize this is a sham and all adults are actually just overgrown children better at hiding their mediocrity. And then as a slightly older adult you realize that the good politicians are actually better at certain skills (mostly interacting with social networks and managing emotional expectactions in complex ways) even if they're not good at other skills (such as "not being a sociopath").
"The same belief, for example, isn't true of doctors or quantum physicists."
Maybe, but that doesn't stop people from not believing doctors and physicists.