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  • The Atlantic

    Smart Men Acting Stupid

    In attempting to succeed in the Trump-era Republican Party, some politicians are masquerading as what they imagine voters want, with results that ring almost comically false.
    by David A. Graham Jan 28, 2022 6 minutes
    Source: Getty; The Atlantic

    In 2013, Bobby Jindal, then the governor of Louisiana and a presidential hopeful, delivered some tough love to the Republican National Committee: “We must stop being the stupid party.” Specifically, he continued, “we must stop insulting the intelligence of voters. We need to trust the smarts of the American people. We have to stop dumbing down our ideas and stop reducing everything to mindless slogans and taglines for 30-second ads.”

    Even in the pre-Trump GOP, this was a bracing message, but Jindal was the person to make it: Known for his wonkish mien, Jindal had graduated from Brown at 20, scored a Rhodes Scholarship, become the youngest president of the University of Louisiana system, and then won the governorship.

    Jindal’s speech is unthinkable today, not only because the Republican Party has moved in an even more decisively anti-intellectual direction, but also because the kinds of politicians who resemble Jindal—brainy, ambitious ones with Ivy League résumés—are pursuing the opposite course of action. This is the age of smart politicians pretending to be

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