As the Republican candidates for president line up onstage at any of the numerous debates so far, we observers can witness the dramatic transformation of the party in recent years. Here, in front of cameras and millions of Americans, stand a group of people so extreme and orthodox conservative that Ronald Reagan might have a hard time supporting any of them, with the exception of maybe Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman. How did this happen, and who are the people that support these zealots? That can also be seen in the debates, as the crowd cheers the record-breaking number of executions under Rick Perry or boos a gay soldier serving his country.

The rightward-shift of the GOP has also taken on a strong tone of anti-intellectualism. To the Republican base, being intelligent means being “elitist.” Each candidate has painstakingly tried to prove his or her ignorance and with much success. Michele Bachmann claimed HPV vaccines can cause mental retardation, which proved to be blatantly false. Not to be outdone, Herman Cain said in an interview he doesn’t know who the president of “Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan” is; but it doesn’t matter because that isn’t going to create one job. Very clever, Herman. But Rick Perry takes the cake after forgetting the third federal agency he would eliminate at a recent Republican debate.

Perry said he’d do away with the departments of commerce, education and uh … well, you know the rest. His “oops” moment has by now been replayed and quoted on nearly every news agency and regurgitated by every comedian. At first, I watched with glee as this man proved once again that today’s conservative politicians don’t have a clue what the hell they’re talking about. But as the coverage of it went on and more people laughed at his gaffe, I began to realize it wasn’t so funny. It was just sad, pure and simple. There is still a chance—although now a fleeting one—that Perry could become the next U.S. president, and there’s nothing funny about that. President Barack Obama’s poll numbers are in the toilet, and even if the current situation isn’t his fault, no president has been re-elected with unemployment at more than 7.2 percent. It’s very likely that one of these Republicans will be our next Commander-in-Chief. Each has tried to one-up the others with ludicrous sound-bites regarding who is more conservative, as Perry was obviously attempting to do, but this race to the bottom isn’t what America needs right now. It needs an elitist who understands policy and doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all belief system.

Look at Italy as it deals with the euro crisis. Silvio Berlusconi is the Italian counterpart of what American conservatives want: a down-to-earth, charismatic speaker who voters see as one of their own. Yet Berlusconi has consistently failed to make any serious reforms to stimulate his country’s economy or change its political culture. In crisis mode, that folksy populism no longer works. It’s time for intellectual people to take real action. That’s why the technocrat Mario Monti was chosen to succeed Berlusconi, and his cabinet is filled not with politicians, but with economists, university professors and bank CEOs—“elitist” experts.

Why is it that American voters care more about clever rhetoric than actual policy? I’m no political science major, but I understand the implications of blindly axing the departments of education and commerce. It may currently be popular to say you’ll gut government inside and out, but doing so would have catastrophic effects on this country. Without the Department of Education and its Stafford Loan and Pell Grant programs, how could millions of students go to college? I guess it wouldn’t matter because under any of these presidents, less education would equal more votes.

There’s a reason why these candidates are the only options for the GOP. The whole bunch are mirror images of the anti-intellectual crowd they represent. Living in Chicago, it’s hard to imagine who these voters are—but I recently discovered the blog “People of Wal-Mart” and got my answer. Check it out for yourself to see what I’m talking about. Our country is being hijacked by a bunch of religious know-nothings who know little, if anything, about how government works and fall prey to easy sound-bites on how evil it is. There’s a harsh dose of elitist reality for you. But if we’re going to fight fire with fire, we intellectuals need to amp up our crazy to start being heard. The alternative is no joking matter.