Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, who is one of the many Republicans with presidential ambitions, made a splash earlier this year by saying that the Republican party had to stop being the ‘stupid party’, saying things that made them look hateful and ridiculous in the eyes of the electorate. He was referring to the statements about rape made by Republican senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock in 2012 that transformed likely wins into defeats.
But the problem has always been that the stupid statements were not random utterances but a surfacing of strongly held views, and as long as those views remain unchanged, the statements will inevitably emerge.
We see that Jindal himself shares a lot of stupid views, such as when he recently announced his support for the teaching of creationism in Louisiana’s public schools. Given that the US Supreme Court ruled against teaching ‘creation science’ to balance evolution in a case that originated in Louisiana itself (Edwards v. Aguilard1987), he seems to be doing exactly what Akin and Mourdock did, reflecting the views of the stupidest of his electorate.
If Jindal is really serious about making the Republicans into a party of adults, he needs to act like an adult too.
Rather fine considering that Jindal has a degree in biology from Brown.
@slc1, #1:
Bearing that in mind, what I take from his statement is that he would like the Republican party to stop being the party of stupid people saying stupid things and be the party of smart, educated people saying stupid things on purpose because that corners the stupid vote.
@ Zinc Avenger, #2: I propose quite the opposite: He wants it to be the party of stupid people who are just smart enough to avoid saying stupid things to corner the stupid vote because that will lose them the general election. Nothing wrong with BELIEVING stupid things, of course.
Jindal is using a different definition of stupid. He is quite happy with Republicans saying all manner of things that satisfy the dictionary definition of stupid. His definition of stupid is not an objective property of the words themselves, but rather something assessed retroactively as “what done lost us the election.”
Don’t forget Jindal is a guy who once performed an exorcism. He is stark raving stupid.