I have written a couple of times about “IQ 83,” by science fiction author Arthur Herzog. A man-made virus escapes a lab and begins reducing the intelligence of Americans to idiot levels. “Is We Getting Dummer?” shouts a typo-filed New York Times. The scientist responsible for the disaster desperately tries to come up with a cure before his own IQ drops so far that he is endorsing Kamala Harris and losing Scrabble games to Joe Biden. (OK, that last a part isn’t true; the book was published in 1978. The scientist would have become a Jimmy Carter supporter.)

This past primary Tuesday gave us more cause to wonder if the Founders’ audacious experiment is nearing a bad end. We may not be smart enough to keep a republic. In my previous IQ 83 post, I revealed that Michelle Wu, then a Democratic City Council member in Boston, argued that because use of the crumbling public transportation infrastructure of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority was dropping and rush-hour traffic was increasing, the solution would be to let everyone ride buses and subways for free. She explained that the system was too expensive to repair, see, so the solution was to stop getting any revenue from it at all, because public transportation “is a human right, like health care and education.” It was pointed out by some above an 83 IQ level that a free bus that doesn’t run very often isn’t worth much, but never mind.

The Rest of the Story: Wu was elected Mayor of Boston.

Six years later, the signs are no more promising: