A New Yardstick for Dumbest States in the Nation

If you were to ask the smart folks — you know, the ones with the priciest degrees and fanciest titles — which are the dumbest states in the U.S., they would likely recite the same tired list they always do, with the usual smirks and eye-rolling. Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Wyoming, Indiana, and, yes, probably Texas too.

But I’m here today to present a new list of the dumbest, in this ranking order:

1. Hawaii

2. Vermont

3. Massachusetts

4. Rhode Island and Maryland (tie)

5. California

6. New York

7. New Jersey

8. Illinois

9. Connecticut

10. Oregon and Washington (tie)

How can I propose such an upside down view of things? After all, these states collectively are home to all but one of the Ivy League universities, plus M.I.T., Johns-Hopkins, Stanford, Berkeley, Cal-Tech, U. Of Chicago, and (if you insist) USC. Well, that would appear to be part of the problem. They’re the ones who write the books that look down on everyone else and insist that the dumb ones are illiterate Bible-thumpers and redneck skinheads. 

As it happens, there’s a timely new poll out that puts quite a different light on things, so starkly that it’s hard to miss a plethora of ludicrous ironies in the outcome, which demonstrates a clear pattern that’s hard to deny. Seven months into the Biden administration, the president’s approval ratings are tanking, and the following table illustrates just how badly. The poll results shown here do not even reflect the past few days of the burgeoning Afghanistan catastrophe: 

Don’t look for these numbers to get better anytime soon. Newsmax has published another poll with complementary findings; only 39 percent of likely voters believe Biden is actually in charge of his administration. 51 percent think he isn’t. It’s probable that both polls exhibit similar geographic demographics. I mentioned a clear and stark pattern, which is easily observed by even a glance at this map of the Civiqs respondents showing locations of states that continue to approve of Biden even now.

Colorado is on the fence. X’s are to make clear when a state does not belong in the overlapping circle.

I also mentioned ludicrous ironies. The voters still supporting Biden come from two specific locations at opposite ends of the country: The self-obsessed Pacific Coast and the complacent Northeast. They are not the nation or even much representative of it; they are, to be blunt, just the frayed edges of the United States. (Hawaii is its own story, not a state at all but a resort territory mooching off tourists from the U.S.) The states still approving of Biden’s presidential performance include most of the cities experiencing skyrocketing crime and murder rates (Baltimore MD, Portland OR, New York City NY, Chicago IL), states with the very highest COVID fatalities (NY, NJ), states where homelessness has resulted in tent cities that are a plague on formerly prestigious city locations (CA, NY), states where Democrat governors and mayors are being hounded by embarrassing scandals and even recall efforts (NY, IL, OR, CA), and multiple states going broke with the costs of undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities.

And make no mistake — approving of Biden’s performance at this point in time means defending the policies and (in)actions of a senile socialist who in just half a year turned the clock back from 2020 to 1975, the year I must point out when Saigon fell gracelessly to put a humiliating period on the Vietnam war. Ring any bells? Where were we in 1975? Mounting inflation, pervasive national pessimism after the rancorous removal of a controversial president hated by the press from his first day in office, an accelerating drug epidemic, an embittered generation of students who protested the draft away, learned to loathe the military for life, and created a loutish counterculture that led to bombs, racial terrorists, and a press that began truly to hate America. Thus was the stage set for a progressive president who would go on to create his own foreign humiliations and economic blunders with multi-generational consequences at the cost of more American lives. Almost half a century of regress in just seven months. 

What can you say about people who would support that? Ignorant and stupid. Dumb.

Actually I’ll give old-time liberal Alan Dershowitz the last word here. He recently had a dustup with Larry David, an old friend of his who has become a WOKE Hollywood progressive. The article is here. And here’s a quote:

“Although the scene might seem suitable for David's humorous show, Dershowitz told the Post "it wasn’t funny at all."

Dershowitz said David "screamed" and "yelled" at him, and that his face turned bright red.

"I won't get into a screaming match with Larry," Dershowitz told Newsmax. "He's going to have to scream himself. Pretty, pretty sad!"

Dershowitz told the Post that David was "a knee-jerk radical. He takes his politics from Hollywood. He doesn't read a lot. He doesn't think a lot."

That radicalism apparently has traveled East.

"It's typical of what happens now on the Vineyard," Dershowitz said. "People won't talk to each other if they don’t agree with their politics.

"I'm a liberal Democrat and I voted for [President Joe] Biden just as enthusiastically as Larry did."