[continued from previous message]   
      
       identified within educational groups. While non-college whites   
       certainly turned out more heavily for Trump, the smart ones did not   
       only 38% of those with perfect scores are expected to go for Trump,   
       and only 46% of non-college graduates who scored a standard deviation   
       above the mean. The same is true for college graduates  low cognition   
       college graduates were more likely to vote for Trump. ...   
      
       What is really depressing isnt just the poles of the vocabulary exam,   
       its the average. The mean and median of the scale is 6  so half of   
       white Americans missed 4 of the easy vocabulary questions.   
      
   Sherkats research also explored how religion impacted support for Donald   
   Trump among white voters: This study confirms that white Americans with   
   fundamentalist views of the Bible and those who embrace identifications   
   with sectarian Protestant denominations tended to vote for Donald Trump in   
   the 2016 election.   
      
   Belief that the Bible is the literal word of God also impacted Trump   
   voting: Viewing the Bible as a book of fables is also significantly   
   predictive of vote choice, with secular beliefs reducing the odds of a   
   Trump vote by 80 percent when compared to literalists, and reducing the   
   odds of a Trump vote by 52 percent when compared to respondents who view   
   the Bible as inspired by God.   
      
   In an email to Salon, Sherkat offered additional context and implication   
   on the relationship between white Christianity, American neofascism and   
   cognition:   
      
       The problem of the contemporary American fascist right is rooted in   
       education and information. And this problem is not simply about   
       attainment of some quantity of education, but of the quality and   
       content of education, how that leads generations of white Christian   
       Americans to process information about a wide range of issues. The   
       segregation academies that proliferated in the mid-1960s and   
       accelerated in the 1970s have taught millions of Americans a radically   
       skewed version of American and world history and encouraged a   
       continued segregated society. The homeschooling movement augmented   
       this division, and further denigrated the value of knowledge.   
      
       White fundamentalist Christians have always segmented their   
       communities from the rest of America, and even exert considerable   
       control over public educational institutions, particularly in rural   
       areas and in the states which embraced slavery. White fundamentalist   
       Christians distrust mainstream social institutions like education and   
       print media, and they actively seek to eliminate public education and   
       to provide alternative sources of information. As a result, people who   
       identify with and participate in white Christian denominations and who   
       subscribe to fundamentalist beliefs have substantial intellectual   
       deficits that make them easy marks for a wide variety of schemes  from   
       financial fraud to conspiracy theories.   
      
       If you cant read the New York Times, youre going to believe whatever   
       you hear on talk radio or on television. Its simply impossible for   
       people with limited vocabularies and low levels of cognitive   
       functioning to make sense of the complex realities of the political   
       world. And we now have a population where for 55 years substantial   
       fractions of white people have gone to private fundamentalist   
       Christian schools that leave them both indoctrinated in Christian   
       nationalism and ill-prepared to process any additional information.   
       Worse, we now have over a million children in a given year who are   
       homeschooled by parents who are uneducated white fundamentalists  and   
       that total has been pretty constant for three decades since the   
       homeschooling movement blossomed.   
      
   What does this mean for the present and future of American democracy in   
   this time of crisis? Sherkat cited the disturbing ... influence of   
   anti-intellectualism on American public life, which lends performative   
   power to ignorant elites:   
      
       Spouting off obvious untruths is no longer a mark of shame, because   
       even basic historical and contemporary truths are not recognized. We   
       seem to have a stable set of about 30% of Americans, 35% of white   
       Americans, who are oblivious to political realities and incapable and   
       unwilling to come to terms with any of our key social problems. The   
       increasing control over public education by right-wing fanatics is   
       entrenching ignorance and intellectual laziness in future generations.   
       It does not bode well for the future of American democracy.   
      
   Donald Trump and his movement did not create all these American   
   authoritarians and aspiring fascists. Such people have long been a feature   
   of American society. What Trump and the Republican-fascists and their   
   movement have accomplished in recent years is to empower and normalize a   
   dangerous set of antisocial, anti-human, retrograde and anti-democratic   
   values and beliefs. Advertisement:   
      
   Saving Americas democracy will require a moral and political reckoning and   
   acts of critical self-reflection on a nationwide scale about the American   
   peoples character and values, and about how their leaders and governing   
   institutions have failed them.   
      
   Changes in laws and institutions are necessary. But on their own, such   
   interventions will not stop the spread of fascism. A lasting remedy will   
   demand that the countrys political, cultural, and educational institutions   
   be renewed, re-energized, and reimagined. The questions Americans must ask   
   themselves are simple yet enormous: Who are we? What are we to become? How   
   can we unite in defense of democracy, the common good and the general   
   welfare? Without real answers to those questions, there will be no   
   democratic renewal in the 21st century  and fascism wins.   
      
   Read more on Trump supporters and the rise of fascism:   
      
       Republicans have dropped the mask  they openly support fascism. What   
       do we do about it? Former GOP strategist Rick Wilson on Putins deep   
       appeal to dictator-friendly Republicans At last the Republican Party   
       comes clean: It stands for terrorism and Trump, against democracy   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)