The Walking Ignorant

My colleague Patrick coined a phrase this afternoon while he and I were conversing at work about next week's election:  "The Walking Ignorant".  Patrick is a resident of Georgia, a very smart guy, and he's a genuinely nice person as well as being a good co-worker.  Since "The Walking Dead" is supposed to be based in Georgia originally (now they're up in rural "Alexandria" Virginia, in the drawn-out series, that I honestly wish would just end - they killed off Glen in a meaningless, brutal, and gratuitous death by barbwire covered baseball bat bashing from the current incarnation of what the worst human urges could manifest themselves) so the "Walking Ignorant" label is particularly poignant.

"The Walking Ignorant" is aimed at supporters of Donald J. Drumpf (his real name, not "Trump" that he made up when he was a kid), as it symbolizes their willful ignorance of facts and their embrace of a false equivalency.  Their candidate Donald spouts lies constantly - according to Politifact more than 75% of the time he's lying - but they scream about Hillary Clinton lying about her emails?  Yeah, that's equally as bad.... right?  Or far worse?  No, it isn't.  Politifact rates Hillary Clinton as lying about 25% of the time, or, for those who are not good at math, Drumpf lies three times more than Clinton does, and the lies he tells are massive whopper ridiculous lies.  But "The Walking Ignorant" don't care about facts or lies or the existence of audio recordings of their candidate contradicting himself constantly, repeatedly.

To illustrate how incredibly ignorant and misinformed the typical Drumpf supporter is, all one needs to do is look at this Daily Show piece from Jordan Klepper who perfectly nails it:



The sheer ignorance, willful ignorance of these Drumpf supporters is beyond description.  It is impossible to write more outlandish racist and paranoid dialogue than what this clip depicts.

I wonder if Jordan feels like he loses a little bit of his soul... his life force... his will to live, when he does these kinds of field pieces?  I know I sure couldn't do it without wanting to slap most of these people upside the head who see themselves somehow as 'patriotic Americans' ... when they're really just an illustration of how massively misinformed the masses are within the American electorate.

People, facts matter.  Actual, real facts, not fabrications or things you 'believe are true' but which there is no actual factual basis to justify that they are true.