Flatter the Downtrodden

"You're so beautiful. You are incredibly smart."

Thus does the politician ingratiate himself with the crowd when not kissing babies to seem nice, a practiced formula lizard people use to identify as human (pronoun: ssssssss).

The media likewise needs dupes to fall for flimsy narratives, so they too flatter people bored enough to watch dull shows, read bad writing, sloppy thinking, and stay ready to provide dramatic reactions about the insignificant. Rational evaluators are the worst for media because they measure substance and scope instead of declaring the end of history and the world over trivialities and misinterpretations.

Towards this end, the press and others who rely on duping promote a phony intellectual class in which they place all people who repeat their narrative and take it seriously without questioning its assumptions and assertions. Those who critique it are by definition not intelligent or trustworthy, and should be sent to reeducation camps or public schools until they comply.

This expands the measure of intelligence from the 5% capable of independent thought to all those who listen to news talkers and media personalities.

Redefining who is intelligent flatters a new majority that consists of those who repeat opinions promulgated on entertainment shows. Someone asked what good is flattery? It's a great way to softly force compliance from those who know they don't measure up.