Quite a long time ago, you thought you coined the phrase “dumbing down America.” Talk about a dumb thought. Actually, the expression has been cited for decades. You and no other living person can lay claim to it. Apparently, a screenplay writer invented the term in 1933. Most likely he was male. Most likely, he was a white, racist, misogynist male bigot. He presumably said something like, “People, we need to dumb down this script; it’s got to appeal to a lot of low IQ’s out there.” Nearly a century later, the movie industry still dishes out rubbish that aims at an 8th-grade-level audience. But as a dumb-it-down expert, Hollywood plays second fiddle to TV advertising. These hucksters ostensibly are some of America’s most gifted communicators who work feverishly to lower an already embarrassing low bar. You shouldn’t really belittle them, though, should you, Matilda? You should climb down from your high horse. Movie makers and advertisers produce garbage because research proves that’s what buyers want. Nobody forces people to see garbage or hear garbage. In fact, you must conclude that the Dumbing Down of America is what the people desire. It’s a choice, after all. For instance, Americans have decided that English grammar is irrelevant. College professors, CEO’s, celebrities — and just about everybody else — think valley girl Uptalk is cool. Think of it. They can actually hear themselves talk, hear how it sounds. Especially the TV talkers themselves. And the execs who hire them. And the technicians who record them. It’s a choice. America’s education ranks somewhere around 45th among nations. Your average college graduates couldn’t pass a 1912 8th grade final exam. For that matter, lacking a suitable vocabulary, they couldn’t begin to write an essay without Google, an iPhone and spell-check. Meanwhile, down the street at grammar school, kids are fast-tracked to learn the value of gender “fluidity,” LGBTQ concepts and critical race theory, while being taught that American history is a racist myth. And the parents of these guinea pig sponges? They shrug their apathetic shoulders. It’s a choice. Not to be left behind on the road to oblivion, the music industry makes a good case to be named “Dumb-It-Down” Champion. The industry’s devotion to ineptitude was epitomized by the ’22 Super Bowl halftime show, an exercise in vulgarity attempting to impersonate talent; and an exercise in noise attempting to impersonate music. Ironically, out of step somewhat with rap trash, advertisers still rely mostly on classical music and songs from every decade of the 20th century. Thankfully, for them, dumbness is an affliction, but not without a survival instinct. It’s a choice. You want to blame America’s socio/political/economic upheaval on Her cultural vanishing act. Too bad it’s not that simple. It is true that culture plays a role. But a more ominous specter than dumbness hovers over your precious Republic. It has a name. It is ever present. It walks on two legs. It bears false witness. It plunders. It commits murder. It is not dumb. Evil. In the hands of the individual, Evil inflicts pain and suffering on groups of people. In the hands of government, Evil commits genocide on humanity itself. You don’t need to cite the hundreds of examples to prove it. Autocratic governments, the root of all Evil on a mass scale, always subjugate, plunder, incarcerate and liquidate. America’s Founders knew it. They risked everything to put Evil in a cage called The Constitution. Ever since, Evil has been seducing jailers to cut it some slack, to listen to a new song that a discontented people will love. Now millions of America’s dummies are singing that song — only it’s not a new song. Evil lied. In fact, it’s the song that took down Rome and gave the world Caligula, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Vlad III, and Mao. And now Joe Biden. Speaking of whom, he’s asking you to dance to that song, borrowed from his pals — it’s called the Left Wing Shuffle. It’s a choice.

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