Why Aren't We As Stupid And Fearful?

Amanda Marcotte (a great blogger from Austin) has a few ideas about something that I've been wondering about for a while. From where I've been sitting, Americans in the latter half of the Clinton administration through the Bush years have been extremely easy to manipulate, mostly through fear. I always assumed that it was because people in general are pretty stupid. So now I'm wondering whether there are more smart people that I thought, or if the smart people are just more engaged.

Here's a clip from Amanda's post:

...one of the most interesting and underrated things that Obama did was quietly but decisively demonstrate that you don’t have to fit the badly-dressed fishing and chewing stereotype to be a Real Man. And in doing so, I think he woke up the right wing and mainstream media to something that should have been obvious, which is that the redneck set and their worshippers don’t actually have a lock on secure masculinity. It’s really kind of silly, because the right wing noise machine and their mainstream enablers knew for a fact that the way to stir up the troops was to provoke those insecurities---imply that someone was out to rob them of their manhood or provoke insecurities about being ignorant and provincial by calling liberals “elitist"---but despite this, I guess they must have honestly not realized that said insecurities were easily provoked because the people who have them are, duh, insecure.

But America is getting more urban, more diverse, and we’re even getting exposed to more things, and it’s changing the equation. As each generation comes up, fewer of them feel left out of the sexual revolution. (I went to a condom couture show on campus a few weeks ago, and even the College Republicans had entered a dress. Made of condoms. This should make their elders realize they’re losing the war rapidly.) And frankly, there’s a lot more models for how to be a Real Man nowadays, despite mainstream media’s brave attempts to shame men who shower and dress nice by calling them “metrosexuals”. Geeks aren’t excluded from the manhood club, not when the most famous business owners in the country aren’t car manufacturers so much as the guys who brought you your computers and iPods and video game systems. Intelligent, urbane men are a constant right wing target for masculinity shaming, but let’s face it, said men have a couple aces in the pocket, namely they aren’t little babies that are scared of dealing with women as equals and they win the sexual prowess contest without even breaking a sweat, and good luck defining masculinity without that.

I don't think that she's completely answered the question (for instance, she doesn't address the whole "there's a terrorist under your bed" thing). This country has made a pretty significant shift in attitude in a remarkably short time (although sometimes hard to tell, living in Texas). But it's nice to see I am not the only one wondering about this.