Kerry’s poli sci degree is a BA so poli sci is a “pseudo-science.” :smack: Does Speaker Pelosi have the authority to have Massie spanked?
A famous scene from Inherit the Wind portrays a similar fight, in America’s past, between science and ignorance. But at least the politicians of those days were sincere and serious.
When Hollywood portrays the abominable hearings, like OP’s example, of the present era, they won’t hire stars like Spencer Tracy to engage in witty repartee. The scenes will feature hebephrenic clowns portraying Gohmert, Massie et al, all incapable of anything but laying turds on the floors of Congress, pointing at their turds and laughing.
Thank you all for the thoughtful replies. The idea that Massie was pandering to morons (“See, y’all, I’m just as stupid as you!”) had not occurred to me. I look for political leaders to know stuff that I don’t. I suppose there are other voters who prefer that their leaders be stupid.
In any event, then, I will still consider Louie Gohmert, the Pride of East Texas, as the stupidest person in Congress. Massie isn’t stupid, he just thinks his voters are.
He’s not pandering to morons. His speaking points, reiterated on twitter, are common among climate change deniers, many of them with prestigious education who are not in political office and are only into it to protect opinions they have cemented through prolonged Dunning-Krugering and confirmation bias research.
Being intelligent doesn’t prevent you from being stupid, just like being Jewish is no guarantee against becoming a white nationalist.
Why do you think those programs have adopted the term “science”? It is to co-opt the high regard of actual science. Kind of like how Trump named his bunk classes “Trump University”.
Before “political science” existed, those duties were undertaken by successful individuals. The progressive movement, associated with pseudo-science like eugenics from the beginning, sought to creat a class of “experts” to manage society and behavior. They adopted the language of real science to do this.
This should be offensive to anyone who has respect for actual science, but many otherwise smart liberal scientists and engineers buy into the “expert” narrative many social “sciences” have created.
A political science degree is not a credential that should be given any credence whatsoever. It is the credential of an individual who seeks to control, influence, and coerce people without having earned their respect by using the state apparatus.
That. He *seemed *clumsy about it because it’s a clumsy point to argue if you know better. The pols who are dumb enough to believe in denialism, or just accept it as plausible, are much smoother and more practiced about saying so.
This exchange with Sec. Kerry is the only thing I know about Rep. Massie, so I may have mischaracterized the man as dumb. However, the “points” he was trying to make are beyond dumb. They were so misguided that Kerry, a man familiar with negotiating with the worst of humanity, was at a loss for how to proceed.
Thank you for the transcript. Sadly, it just doesn’t do the moment justice. The smug tone that Massie has is just priceless. He acts like he thinks he has really put one over on Kerry; that he has somehow proven something or other. Of course, the people that Massie is hamming it up for probably thinks that their guy did put the egghead academic in his place.
Yes, Massie knew he was just playing the role of clown. He was pretending to be a moron in order to appeal to real morons. (Is it possible to find similar bullshit in Congressional transcripts from 50 years ago, or is this level of bullshit new?)
At SDMB, we almost all see Massie’s bullshit as a pretense of stupidity. (@ WillFarnaby — you can see this too, right? When you’re not trying to twist the hearing’s dialog into some unrelated narrative.)
What is especially sad is that ordinary FoxNews couch potatoes were not Massie’s primary target audience. He was playing especially for one man: the Couch Potato-in-Chief, DJT.
Oh, he knows the truth. He’s just rather push his false facts through to get the GOP base and big sectors to keep donating.
GOP leaders present themselves as idiots, but they’re not idiots in reality. They play idiots to rise up their base and keep getting that sweet corporate money.
I don’t know, I just watched the actual interaction with the admiral and it doesn’t look like he’s being facetious to me. The whole interaction is here, although they stop right after the admiral says they don’t anticipate that will happen:
That video is admittedly making fun of him by showing his statement twice, but they show the whole thing in context. He spends the whole time talking (very slowly, and barely getting the facts out) about how small an island it is, and then, seemingly seriously, expresses concern that it could tip over. I suspect their statement after the fact was just cover.
I don’t know anything about Congressman Johnson and for all I know, he’s a master of deadpan humor, but I didn’t pick it up from that clip.