Donald Trump’s net approval rating (percent favorable minus percent unfavorable) for his handling of COVID 19 is +26 in Alabama, +17 in Louisiana, +16 in Mississippi and +14 in Oklahoma. This has contributed to a despicable new form of prejudice that I term Geoism.
Geoism attributes low intelligence to people based not on race or nationality, but solely on where they live. Today, progressives jokingly refer the deep South from South Carolina to Texas as Dimwitistan. But differing political opinions are never signs of low intelligence. By any measure, residents of the deep south are highly intelligent. In fact, the median IQ in every one of these states is higher, by large measure, than that of ten of the eleven primate species.
These state’s political leaders are smart, informed and were educated at the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities. For example, among the ten members of the House Freedom Caucus from the states of Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas we find degrees from the following institutions:
Alvin Community CollegeÂ
Asbury CollegeÂ
Brevard Community College
Luther Rice Seminary
Oral Roberts UniversityÂ
Presbyterian CollegeÂ
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Houston–Clear Lake
Attended the University of Texas at Arlington for two years
Clearly, the problem lies neither with native intelligence nor education. The problem is that the population of the deep south have developed a herd immunity to facts.
Herd immunity occurs when a large portion of a community (the herd) becomes immune to facts, curtailing the spread of facts from one person to another. A certain percentage of the population must be capable of accepting a fact in order for it to spread. As the proportion of the population that is immune to facts reaches a threshold level, the spread of facts ceases entirely. This is known as the factual herd immunity threshold
Where Fox News is the prime source of news, the factual herd immunity threshold occurs at 55%. By 2018, all states in the deep south had surpassed this threshold and developed herd immunity to facts. As a result, the entire region became ill-informed and easily contaminated deceitful rumors, fallacious tweets and fraudulent conspiracy theories.
It now appears this herd immunity may spread in areas that border Dimwitistan including the multi-state regions of Braindeadistan and Halfwitistan. This may explain why only 50% of Americans plan to use a COVID vaccine.
Demographers warn that vaccine refusal could trigger a Darwinian winnowing in certain parts of the United States.
