'Stop electing stupid people': Rage as Marjorie Taylor Greene flunks American history test
'Stop electing stupid people': Rage as Marjorie Taylor Greene flunks American history test
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is in hot water for getting two out of eight people correct when listing individuals who signed the Declaration of Independence. Greene, who earlier in the day was hit with a flurry of criticism for falsely claiming that Donald Trump won her state of Georgia in.....
I dunno... in a way, that's representation in its purest form - angry, stupid Republicans have one of their own in office.
🇷🇺 Russian representation
You guys have to look at it in context. She IS representing her district. She's actually above average around those parts. It's sad and off putting when viewed through your eyes but in her district she is a towering intellect, the likes of which will rarely be repeated in the future. We should all celebrate her efforts to participate in representative government.
The killer bit is apparently she looked up their ages in 1776 and just didn't bother confirming who signed.
From here:
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/signers-factsheet
Yeah, average age was 44.51.
56 people signed it.
Oldest was Ben Franklin at 70.
Youngest were Thomas Lynch Jr. and Edward Ruteledge, both 26.
28 people were under the age of 45.smart, mentally stable people never get in to politics and instead find enjoyable work they can be proud of.
My God, how does such an ignorant, sophomoric, and patently ignorant take have so many upvotes on Lemmy? Some of the most intelligent and kind people I know have gone into politics, but mostly have just been local.
But even at the top, without even thinking I can point to Obama who went to Harvard law.
Granted, I agree that politics does not select specifically for intelligence, as mtg among many others prove, but the idea that smart and mentally stable people don't go into politics is just ridiculously stupid.
fine fine. mentally stable people rarely make it big in politics. even local in my region has some sketchy shit going on where nothing gets done about it even after its made public. The seemingly nice politicians that actually care about the people never get voted in here, only the ones that make empty promises and never deliver, or just outright bait and switch.
Well, you can’t know everything about everything, that’s why you have to collaborate with other experts so you can supplement each others knowledge.
But every job has some reasonable expectations of knowledge and standards because that’s what doing it competently requires.
Why is basic history and civics important for a congressperson? You’re essentially helping right laws and regulations which will impact generations to come, and if you’re uninformed you may be open to being manipulated or mislead. The double danger for anyone in congress is that foreign interests can also mislead or manipulate for malicious reasons, and not just greed reasons.
So expecting basic level of information from a congressperson isn’t elitism, I’d say it’s a matter of homeland and national security.
The right wing have spent decades spinning competence, experience, education, etc...as elitism. Having hiring/firing power and billions at your command? That's not elitism. Knowing things, and saying it out loud - that's the REAL elitism.
I think that's partly why the "term limits" mantra (and the ageism that often goes with it) is rather annoying. The anti-intellectualism that is typically at root of that is why.
Every presidential election in my lifetime has had a candidate that has been attacked as "the dumb one" and another that has been attacked as "the smart evil one" (note: the might not be this, but they were attacked as if they were this)
The "dumb one" has won every time.
That would rule out voting for most Republicans, though. I think the Republican brand is all about not appearing smarter than anyone else - or, better yet, actually being quite stupid and not just having to play stupid - because being smart and knowing things is considered "elitist" by the con base.
They have subverted the definition of elitism to carve out exceptions for the actual elitists, to the point where donnie is considered (by them) to be for the little man, while simultaneously supposedly being a business magnate with billions to his name. Nothing elitist about having billions, and being given half a billion by your father, I guess.
LOL, that perfectly captures the BS talking point about having an "outsider" instead of an actual expert. I love it!
I often notice that people that clamor for term limits and for "outsiders" to run government are not pining for outsiders to pilot planes they are on, drill their teeth, fix their roofs, prepare their taxes, defend them in court, and so on.
That should instantly disqualify her from holding office. You should have a basic understanding of American history in order to govern properly, and it's obvious she doesn't know shit about the history of this country despite arrogantly acting like she does.
I don't think the barrier should be "do you know history trivia?' but rather "can you read and understand a wikipedia article?"
Except that would immediately turn into Jim Crow era literacy tests and be used for evil. You'd want an electorate that cares and a press that asks revealing questions, though.
I mean the Jim crow literacy test thing was used against voters. These are people that are supposed to govern. I kinda draw a distinction there.
Yes I do believe that voters and the press should be caring more and asking more revealing questions, but media literacy in this country is low, voter involvement is low, and our press is nothing more than arms of the ruling class so they rarely ever ask the necessary questions to allow voters to truly understand who's on the ballot.
I can excuse someone for not knowing details because not everybody is a history major (hell I don't even know who all signed that document), but these people build their whole identity and politics around jingoism, so they better back it up.
I had to pass a civics test to get out of 8th grade. Why is it not required for someone to be a congressperson?
let me ask the major news corps about this
"have you considered that her being in congress gets us a lot of ad revenue as we write articles about how we read twitter posts? eat shit" - corporate media
It’s going to be an awkward conversation but she is officially off the trivia team. If she thinks I’m switching trains to get to Capital Hill just to lose, she’s got another fact to learn.
She has, conservatively (ahem), several facts to learn
It's at a point where I feel sorry for her but the real losers are those that vote for this moron
I thought she would be finished when she was going on about Jewish space lasers. But that is my fault for thinking they would get rid of their jester.
Your fault for thinking they consider her a jester
Man, B6 is such a goddamn embarrassment
B6?
A hilariously apropos insult leveled at her by a fellow representative whilst calling her out on some hypocrisy a little while ago: bleach blonde bad built butch body
Alliterative, snappy, and didn’t even have to stoop to the obvious profane jab that would work under that constraint (thus running afoul of chamber decorum rules). Props to Rep Crockett for that. I like to shorten it to B6.
I would if any smart people ever ran for office.
When you're right you're right, I guess.
Any better cases for projection, guys? Politicians, amirite?
