Trendspotting, the Digby way

Digby points out something that would never occur to most of us, but is so friggin' obvious that I immediately realized that it simply must be true.

He starts by noting, via Kevin Drum, an existing and some forthcoming "children's" books:

Kevin Drum linked to an article by Michelle Cottle in an obscure, subscription-only, outmoded journal in which she discusses the latest rightwing punlishing phenom, the child brainwashing author named Katharine DeBrecht who wrote the alleged runaway best-seller called "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!"

I hadn't heard of this children's book, but apparently Limbaugh is rivaling Oprah these days and managed to get 30,000 of them sold after mentioning it on his show. Debrecht now has a contract for several more books, the announced titles of which include:

"Help! Mom! Hollywood's in My Hamper!"
"Help! Mom! The Ninth Circuit Nabbed the Nativity!"
"Help! Mom! There Are Lawyers in My Lunchbox!"

Here's the Digbyan insight:

But, let's be honest about this. These children's books aren't actually aimed at children. They can't be. Kids won't read books about the Ninth Circuit. These books are cheap propaganda items aimed at the neanderthal base of the Republican Party, for whom Ann Coulter's screeds are over their heads. There are millions of them. They'll buyt them "for the children" but they'll read them outloud to the poor tykes over and over again for their own education.

It reminds me of the theory we've all seen circulated about why Bush always sounds like he's lecturing to five year olds when he has one of these town meetings. ("See, social security should make you feel secure. That's why the word security is in the name, see...") The only reasonable explanation for this infantile rhetoric is that he's regurgitating these explanations as they were explained to him.

Think about "The O'Lielly Factor for Kids." It is aimed at the the reading level of Big Giant Head's followers, who read at the level of kids. Talking to them about abstractions like the Bill of Rights is like reading "Principia Mathematica" to a pit bull -- they grasp the fact that we are talking, but they quickly figure out that it has nothing to do with them. It isn't just that those folks wouldn't read Greenwald's book -- they are simply incapable of doing so.

The long-term answer is obviously education. But I don't know what the short-term answer is -- The Constitution paint by Numbers?