I’ve been watching America from the outside for several months now and I’m seeing something that concerns me. There is a concerted effort by the GOP to embrace ignorance that I’m calling “Everybody Knows”. I’m seeing it everywhere. Here are some recent examples.
When Marsha Blackburn tried to play the “gotcha card” in her attempt to get Ketanji Brown Jackson to define a woman she was using this. (The Senate just confirmed her, congrats to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson!) What she was really saying was “everybody knows what a woman is” and when pressed the GOP mostly fell in line with the “two X chromosomes” dodge as if science was their justification. It wasn’t. Their real justification was “God created man and woman” but they know they can’t say that out loud. But they also know most people don’t know diddly squat about the complex science behind sex chromosomes and the various hormones that make sex a broad spectrum and that non-binary people are WAY more common than they learned in Sunday school or their biology classes based on a 1960’s understanding of genetics and human development.
Another example is “abortion stops a beating heart”. Again this is something they claim “science proves” but that’s not true. Science shows there are electric impulses on what amounts to a bulge in an artery but it isn’t a heartbeat since there is no heart and the “beat” is sporadic and weak. But they’re playing to the “everybody knows that a heartbeat means you’re alive” and hoping they can smuggle their warped religious views into the nation’s laws without getting challenged on the First Amendment.
There are so many of these it could be turned into a series. “Everybody knows women don’t negotiate as well as men, that’s why they have lower pay” “Everybody knows the real problem with race is talking about it” “Everybody knows that being a cop is dangerous” “Everybody knows we can’t do anything about climate change” “Everybody knows that COVID is just a bad cold” And on and on and on. And they get massive help from a lazy media who rarely if ever calls them out on their bullshit because they’re worried they’ll be seen as “elitist” or suffering from “liberal bias” if they do.
While appeals to the “common man” have a long history in American politics I think this recent wave is the natural outcome of Trump’s election. He played into these themes hard for his entire campaign and (thankfully) one term in office and still relies on it. It’s part of his “Big Lie” about the election, he doesn’t have facts he has “everyone knows I was too popular to lose without Biden cheating!” That’s his entire case. And while he seems to be fading there are many, many wannabes eagerly embracing this strategy. From Empty Greene to Herschel Walker to Rick Scott. Hell, Scott’s entire 11 point plan to restore America is basically “Everybody knows (random blather)” with appeals to frightened white Americans to justify bigotry, hatred, and isolationist policies.