<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>From Paul Krugman:</span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 16px; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span><br></span></div><div></div><div><header class="postHeader" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px;"><div class="postMetaHeader"><time datetime="2013-08-19T13:48:22+00:00" title="August 19, 2013, 9:48 am" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); padding: 0px 6px 0px 0px;">August 19, 2013, 9:48 am</time> <span class="postMetaHeaderCommentCount commentCount" style="padding: 0px 0px 0px 8px; font-size: 1.1em; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204,
204);"><a class="commentCountLink icon commentIcon" href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/stupid-is-a-strategy/#postComment" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; padding-left: 13px; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/icons/multimedia/comment_icon.gif); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">31 Comments</a></span></div><h1 class="entry-title" style="margin: 5px 0px 2px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 25px; line-height: 1.083em; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-hinted-1, nyt-cheltenham-hinted-2, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-weight: normal;">Stupid Is A Strategy</h1></header><div class="entry-content" style="margin-top: 15px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em;">Bill
Keller has a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/opinion/keller-war-on-the-core.html?hp&_r=0" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153);">strong, stinging column</a> about Republican attacks on the entirely praiseworthy, up to now bipartisan effort to create a Common Core curriculum. But I think we need to say more than this:</div><blockquote style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 4em; margin-left: 4em; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em;"><div style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.5em;">But more and more, I think Gov. Bobby Jindal, Louisiana’s Republican rising star, had it right when he said his party was in danger of becoming simply “the stupid party.”</div></blockquote><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em;">First of all, right-wing leaders don’t strike me as being at all stupid (although I have to say that I’ve never understood why Jindal himself has a reputation for brilliance). Incurious,
maybe; not given to self-analysis; but not stupid. I never even bought into the notion that GW Bush was dumb; he always struck me as anti-intellectual, but very cunning in his own way.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em;">Now, you might argue that the leaders are catering to their base. Brad DeLong likes to remind us of John Stuart Mill’s dictum:</div><blockquote style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 4em; margin-left: 4em; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em;"><div style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.5em;">I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.</div></blockquote><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em;">Even that, however, doesn’t get you all the way there, because there are
many things one could pretend to be stupid about,so you need to have some notion of why certain subjects become the subject of dumb conspiracy theories, while others don’t. And I think that the best model is, as I <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/conservatives-are-mostly-not-libertarians/" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153);">said the other day</a>, the <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/The-Conservative-Mind/130199/" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153);">Corey Robin</a> notion that it’s about preserving hierarchy. The idea of a common core disturbs a lot of people on the right not because they fear that it will lead to left-wing indoctrination — it’s far too bland for that — but because it could get in the way of right-wing indoctrination, which is what they believe schools should be doing.</div><div style="font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em;">In any case, the fight over the core is, as Keller says, telling
— not just about the state of mind on the right, but about the state of America. There is literally no such thing these days as a nonpartisan agenda. No project, no matter how worthy and blameless, can escape becoming a target for orchestrated rage.</div></div></div></div></body></html>