Stupid is as Stupid does

An unexpected gift

The wisdom of Forrest Gump seems somehow fitting for today’s batch of bigots. My grandmother always said, “If you want to expose a bigot, just stand back and let them talk. They’ll expose themselves.” My grandmother and Forrest had a lot in common. 

The beauty of this strange phenomenon is that a bigot has no idea they exude bigotry. They just can’t help themselves. The specific nature of bigotry doesn’t seem to matter. And what makes this really interesting is that the worst bigots are the very people who have themselves been the bigotry target.

What is it that causes blindness resulting from overcoming bigotry? A religious bigot is a near carbon copy of an economic bigot or a racial bigot, they are all bullies and cowards. It is as though they are all singing the same boring chorus, “I’ve got mine. Get your own. Halleluiah!” 

Consider the following. “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! It is not a person’s fault if they succeeded, it is a person’s fault if they failed.”—Herman Cain.

“That is a mainstream view, that Mormonism is a cult,” “Every true, born again follower of Christ ought to embrace a Christian over a non-Christian.”—Robert Jeffress (mega-church Baptist pastor introducing Perry and denigrating Romney at the Values Voter Summit).

Does anyone notice how both of these gents sound an awful lot like the guy who told the Israelites to make more bricks with less straw? Maybe a better question is, does anyone not notice the similarity? 

My grandma was right: Just stand back and let em talk. It’s the best strategy Obama can have. In the end, stupid is as stupid does.