Anti-intellectualism has increasingly become a part of conservative thinking. This might be the year we finally break through to out-and-out attacking someone for getting an education.
That seems to be the point of a new ad from the South Dakota Republican Party, which is helping incumbent Kristi Noem defend the state’s only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Noem, whose background is in farming, faces challenger Matt Varilek, a Democrat who holds two master’s degrees and has attended UN conferences on global warming.
Guess what qualifications of Varilek were used against him. If you guessed “all, even the fact that he got master’s degrees,” you nailed it. Varilek is vilified for daring to study in the UK and for understanding environmental science.
See the story and the ad at Grist.
