What part of (fill in the blank) don't we understand?

      The man we elected handily to be President of the United States, elected him because we found hope and idealism and some ideas for needed improvements in his words, is finding out that people have a short attention span.
      Or maybe he's finding out that a large chunk of the public has a mean streak, a dark side. A stubborn refusal to accept new facts. And there are lots of people, Republicans and conservatives of various funks, who have nothing to do but cheer on the malcontents. It's American politics -- Didn't like who got voted in? Well, then, do everything we can to see that they fail, even if it means flushing the country down the drain.
       Not everyone won the election when Obama came to office. A lot of white, middle class, under-educated, overly-opinionated, impatient, distrustful of change people think they lost the election, and they refuse to accept the vote count. It might sound like the whole nation is saying, "We don't care who won the election, we didn't agree with the vote so we'll continue to pretend the campaign is still on. Maybe we can get a recount and go back to Ronnie Reagan, or even dig up Barry Goldwater -- maybe he'd still make a good VP. As good as Cheney, anyway."
     But of course, the whole nation is saying no such thing. You don't get to stay a couple of steps ahead of China by being totally stupid; marginally stupid, maybe, but not the whole country.
     For the sake of soothing feelings here, let me define stupid, as opposed to ignorant. Ignorant is not knowing, as in needing an education. Stupid is having access to knowledge but refusing to be confused by the facts. We are all born ignorant, and through the efforts of our parents and teachers we become informed, engaged American and world citizens. Or at least that's the way it used to work, but that was before -- this is now.
     There used to be a lot of ignorance, but not too much stupidity. Regular folks didn't know everything and they at least knew THAT, so they looked for bright, capable men and women (eventually) to serve in public office and learn what we needed to know to be a strong nation, or state, or town. If their term in office didn't measure up, we voted in someone who might do a better job.
     Going back to the pioneer spirit that lots of people like to invoke these days, just look at the venerable mountain man, that solitary trapper of the great American West, who first laid eyes on the plains and towering mountain ranges. Most of them started out their adventures in ignorance, but they learned a hard lesson. There were no old, stupid mountain men; they learned what would kill them, and avoided life's grizzly bears.
     But times change. Now some people celebrate ignorance, and embrace stupidity, because doing otherwise is to admit that those ideas of yesteryear are not enough to sustain a nation. If you don't like change, no matter how inevitable it is, no matter how many manifestations it has in everyday life, well, just ignore it as long as you can, and fight it blindly when it can no longer be ignored. Turn back time, if needed, but diehard conservatives will not concede that there might be a new and better way.
     They'll even find one of those grizzly bears that the mountain men were smart enough to avoid, and try to make it a vice president, or even .... no, we will never be that stupid.