SICK, POOR
& STUPID
That’s how authoritarians want their populations to be. They want the people they control to always be struggling.
Tired.
Desperate.
Because that’s how they’re easier to control.
You’re much easier to manipulate if you can’t think for yourself and don’t have access to any information that contradicts them. So they attack the press. They attack public education. They try to eliminate truth and critical thinking.
Once they’ve got you good and ignorant, then they make it harder to get healthcare. And if you do get it, you probably can’t afford it. At least, not without being indebted for life. Then they attack and discredit any form of social safety net. While also encouraging lavish spending on cheap bullshit that you don’t need.
Then they encourage you to have more kids than you can afford. And why? Because the people can’t pool their resources when no one has anything to spare.
You’re much easier to manipulate if you can’t think for yourself and don’t have access to any information that contradicts them. So they attack the press. They attack public education. They try to eliminate truth and critical thinking.
Once they’ve got you good and ignorant, then they make it harder to get healthcare. And if you do get it, you probably can’t afford it. At least, not without being indebted for life. Then they attack and discredit any form of social safety net. While also encouraging lavish spending on cheap bullshit that you don’t need.
Then they encourage you to have more kids than you can afford. And why? Because the people can’t pool their resources when no one has anything to spare.
SICK
- Mental Health Crisis: Fuck your mental health.
- Fuck Obamacare.
- Fuck research. (“Stem cells make Baby Jesus cry.”)
- Fuck nutrition. (Shitty research, the “food guide pyramid.” Corn subsidies. Factory farming in middle America. Food deserts are the only ecosystem the GOP wants to protect.)
- Fuck the elderly. (Nice Medicare. Would be a shame if something happened to it.)
- Fuck pregnant women. (“Pro-life” is a lie)
- Fuck the environment. (Abolish the EPA)
- Keep drinking polluted water
- Keep breathing polluted air
- Nature is for pussies
POOR
- Tax breaks for the middle class? Keep dreaming.
- Attacks on welfare. “Welfare queens.” “The welfare state.” Or really any economically-focused social safety net for that matter. Food stamps. WIC.
- You don’t own a house? You’re not an adult. (aka What housing shortage?)
- You don’t have kids? You’re not an adult. (aka Your kids deserve to be poor too.)
- End social security. You’ll never collect shit from the account you’ve spent your life paying into.
STUPID
- Attacks on public education:
- Disband the department of education.
- Corrupt or discredit existing institutions of higher learning
- Promotion of private (religious) schools
- Promotion of home schooling (But more on this later)
- Attacks on journalism: Any independent media outlets are attacked as “liberal” (a strong pejorative in modern conservative parlance), “woke” (a term that’s been overused to the point that it’s now stripped of any actual meaning), or just plain “FAKE NEWS.” This makes it easier for mis/disinformation to flourish. For evidence of this, look no further than the aggressively stupid conspiracy theories that pollute any media or social media outlets that are popular among voters (facebook, twitter, Instagram, telegram, r/conservative, Fox News, OANN, Right Side Broadcasting, Newsmax, Info Wars, Brietbart, the Daily Caller, and of course all the podcasts. So many podcasts. (going to hyperlink a dumb fuck podcast on every word there.)
- Attacks on “academics” and “experts” (two more terms that American conservatives tend to spit with a visceral scorn and contempt commonly reserved for rapists and child predators)
The Evidence
Healthy, Wealthy, & Wise
Before we get into how exactly authoritarians pursue these aims, consider the solutions to each of these problems that a modern, democratic government might want to implement.
The solution to poverty would involve both a social safety net of sorts, as well as built-in mechanisms for social mobility – a way out of poverty. Widespread sickness requires a functioning public health system that approaches disease and illness by keeping you from getting sick and treating you when you do. And then there’s our collective stupidity. The solution is not just a better K-12 education system (although that’s the obvious starting point), but also better journalism, efforts to minimize and mitigate widespread misinformation and disinformation, and incentives for continued learning into adulthood, even (and especially) among those who aren’t pursuing advanced degrees.
What do all of these solutions have in common? They require institutions.
The US Government, since at least the 1980s has employed various tactics and strategies at local, state, and federal levels that one could describe as efforts to keep the US population sick, poor. and stupid. This is compounded by an aggressive rhetoric, often manifesting as attacks on various institutions. Nowhere is this more obvious than with the inexplicable vendetta against public education by a large segment of the US population and elected officials. And when they’re not trying to discredit or eliminate anything that works (or might work), they’re actively avoiding any efforts to solve the problems.
On the Venn diagram of efforts to keep you poor, sick, and stupid. the strategy of the Epstein Class pays the highest dividends, and is the most insidious, where the circles overlap.
Poor & Stupid
- Paying teachers less: Disincentive for anyone to become a teacher. Right away, schools are hiring from a pool of less talented/qualified applicants. Those who do have the drive, should they choose to teach in a public school, are almost guaranteed to struggle financially at some point in their career. The kids also get lower quality education; thus, perpetuating the cycle of “keep ‘em good n dumb.”
- Refusal to address the student loan crisis: Disincentive to go to college. And if you still go, get ready to be in debt until right before it’s time to retire.
- The increasing popularity of home schooling among the conservative crowd: Not only does this result in a sub-standard education for the kids, it guarantees that one parent will NOT be in the work force. This then increases the likelihood that the single income
Poor & Sick
- Fuck Obamacare AGAIN. Healthcare in America leads to massive debt. (“affordable care act? That would require us to want you to afford things. And to care.”)
- Quality insurance is unaffordable for most. And even if you’ve got it, it doesn’t actually cover much.
- Mental health crisis, War on Drugs Edition.
- Anti-abortion legislation and propaganda
- Medicaid
Sick & Supid
- Antivax lunacy.
- Mental health crisis, Redux: (can’t learn shit if you’re so stressed/unhealthy that you can’t think straight). Refusal to address mental health crisis in schools. Also might apply to refusal to do anything about school shootings.
- Legislation (or lack thereof) aimed at insulating social media platforms from accountability: For mis/disinformation. For causing a spike in teen suicide and mental health issues. For algorithms geared toward making the platforms addictive.
ALL THREE
Abstinence-only education (Catholics aren’t the only ones who think sex is gross)
All of this creates a state of clueless desperation. Your health is deteriorating. You can’t pay the bills. That stresses you out more, which compounds the adverse effects on your health. And the whole time, you have no idea what to do about any of it. You use social media to trick your friends and family into believing that you’re “living the dream.” But deep down you know it’s a nightmare. Then a smooth-talking man, one who exudes confidence, comes along and starts telling you he can fix it all for you. (The confidence is complete bullshit, as it turns out, but he sells it well, so you don’t notice.) He also tells you who’s to blame for all your problems.
Them.
The people who’ve taken from you. It’s nothing you haven’t heard before. It’s probably things you already believed, or at least suspected, about those people. But this guy. He’s just a little different from the people who were telling you these things before. And this is how the demagogue takes power. Knowing full well all along that he has no intention of helping you. He just wants in on the scam.