"Everyone" who would benefit most certainly includes Dougie

Not in Douggies alternative world, McGrath.

"Remember that perception is not reality, that opinion, no matter how widely held, is not fact... [The United States] moved into an era in which stupidity was celebrated if it managed to sell itself well, if it succeeded, if it made people money. That is "glorifying ignorance". We moved into an era in which the reflexive instincts of the Gut were celebrated at the expense of reasoned, informed opinion. To this day, we have a political party�the Republicans�who, because it embraced a "movement of Conservatism" that celebrated anti-intellectualism is now incapable of conducting itself in any other way. That has profound political and cultural consequences, and the truly foul part about it was that so many people engaged in it knowing full well they were peddling poison."

Charles P. Pierce's Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free (Doubleday, 2009) is illuminating regarding a certain mindset.