McThinking.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. – Henry Ford

Conservatives enjoy Ann Coulter, in much the same way a child enjoys fireworks.They are colorful, make a lot of noise, are easy to understand and don’t take up a lot of time. Children – and some adults – can see the same firework show time and time again and it remains fascinating – just like cat videos.

This isn’t to say that Coulter isn’t wicked smart. She is. She has all sorts of important degrees, and even clerked for a Federal Appeals Court Judge. It isn’t her fault that her fanciful expeditions through the supposed frou frou foibles of liberal intellectualism have attracted a loyal following of dull knives.

Coulter understands brilliantly that bumper sticker wisdom is about the most the true believer can absorb. It’s like reading the last page of an Agatha Christie book – you get the point, but miss out on the slog (although Christie, unlike Dorothy Sayers, is not a slog). And it is that effort which brings the greater reward. After all, how can you decide for yourself the quality of the book if you don’t read it.

But not reading things – instead having them “explained” – is a long suit for Americans. Take the right’s most revered texts: The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bible. I venture to say that not many have read all three. I’ll grant you the Bible is often tedious. But the other two are not. And even if they were, they are mercifully short. A reader with 6th grade abilities could plow through both in an hour.

It is this distance from original sources that allows many to believe that the America was founded as a Christian nation; that the Bible uniquely condemns gays; or that the original motto of the US was “In God we trust”.

As so few true believers read, charlatans and other political or religious opportunists can use these texts as a tabula rasa to promote whatever bigotry warms their heart, safe in the knowledge that the vast unwashed lack the knowledge to call them out. And they lack knowledge, because knowledge, like fitness, is earned. The people who think they have learned something because they listen to Ann Coulter, are the same people who think they can lose weight by swallowing pills.

Or that McDonalds is food.