Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth about the American Voter

by Rick Shenkman

Book Overview

Levees break in New Orleans. Iraq descends into chaos. The housing market teeters on the brink of collapse. Americans of all political stripes are heading into the 2008 election with the sense that... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465077714
• ISBN13: 9780465077717
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
• Length: 210 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

On Myth and Stupidity

Richard Shenkman tells us that he's not saying that the American people are stupid, he's just saying that they are not smart. One thing he will admit to is that our politics are stupid. Why do candidates run campaigns at such a low intellectual level? The answer is obvious: to reach a greater number of voters. In so many indirect ways he answers the question in the title of this book. Shenkman, who is the editor and founder of George Mason University's History News Network, decided to write this book after listening to George Lakoff's explanation of why Democrats were not winning elections. According to Lakoff, Democrats were not framing the issues in a way that presents Democratic values as American values. Shenkman found this superficial, he thought the problem went deeper. He argues that politics are driven by myths rather than frames. Although there are many myths, the primary one is the wisdom the People and the righteousness of their collective choices. Shenkman resurrects the unpopular notion that the People may not always know what is best for them. There is ample evidence to support his claim. The Founders were deeply suspicious of the People, for they feared mob rule. Originally, they wanted only the House of Representatives elected by the voters and the Senate would be elected by state legislatures in order to moderate the People's will. Only reluctantly did they yield to the People's demand to elect Senators. In our own time, conservatives of the 1950's mold were very anti-populist. William Buckley even thought of writing a book that would be his magnum opus called "Revolt Against the Masses." It was not until Nixon and Reagan ran as populists that conservatives started winning elections. Today both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans run in the name of the People, any deviation from this path is electoral suicide. (Just look at the reaction to Phil Gramm's remark that we are a "nation of whiners." How dare he insult the People.) So why are voters not smart about politics? It would seem that we are better educated and better informed than any previous generation. Shenkman tells us that people have little interest in politics, in fact it's usually last on their list of fun things to do. Shenkman's position is reminiscent of Robert Reich's in Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life (Vintage). We are more interested in being consumers than we are in being citizens. There is such an abundance of consumer goods and distracting activities that we have become apathetic. The People have neglected the hard work and dedication that politics requires. Shenkman, who is a liberal, found that the system worked better when at least one political contigent - the conservatives - was not pandering to the People. Now, with everyone pandering - the media included - the system is without checks and balances. To remedy this, Shenkman suggests there should be more civic edu

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

The "Sage of Baltimore", H.L. Menken, an early 20th Century newspaper man and social critic, once observed that nobody ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the American people. The theme of this book might well be that no politician ever lost an election by underestimating the ignorance of the American voter. In spite of its title this book actually does not argue that the American Voter is stupid. Rather Shenkman contends that the American People are ignorant especially of basic geography and history. Further he argues that they suffer from a terminal attention deficit syndrome. Together these shortcomings routinely prevent the American Public from being able to understand complex thoughts and issues that cannot be reduced to thirty second sound bits. As the book makes clear this is exacerbated by the modern phenomenon of public polling and then treating the results as actual news. As any rational examination demonstrates, most polls are virtually meaningless and even if well conducted the average poll respondent is incapable of understanding or indifferent to what is really being asked. These are harsh judgments, but Shenkman supports them with a good deal antidotal evidence. And he is not alone in his conclusion that the American People may lack the sagacity so often attributed to them by politicians seeking their votes. Any serious reading of the Federalist Papers or indeed the U.S. Constitution will reveal that far from having a faith in the abiding wisdom of the people our founding fathers considered them inflammatory dolts and tried to limit their influence in government. This book suggests that they may have been correct.

Did we deserve Bush?

This intriguing book has as its premise that George W. Bush was a terrible president. But the American people voted him into office at least once. That begs the question: Did we deserve him? Are we complicit in his failures? Have the American people turned into dunces? I couldn't put this book down. Its exploration into sloganeering, conspiracy theories, myth-making, image-driven television news and so much more was fascinating. It made me think. Another book that touches on this subject is The Assault on Reason by Al Gore. One of his points is that a cause of the decline of reasoned political thought is television. Gore contends that when more Americans started getting their news from TV instead of newspapers, the emphasis changed from reading, an activity that by its nature activates the parts of the brain involved with reasoning, to watching, which elicits emotion but not thought. In Just How Stupid Are We? author Shenkman makes the same point. "The advantage of television is that the viewer can feel and experience politics. But as a transmission belt of information it is far inferior to newspapers. The American people don't hear what you are saying if the pictures are saying something different." Personally, I believe the American people were not so much stupid as apathetic during the Bush years. When you feel you don't have a voice, you stop talking and turn away. Here's the chapter list: 1. The Problem 2. Gross Ignorance 3. Are the Voters Irrational? 4. The Importance of Myths 5. Giving Control to the People 6. The Power of Television 7. Our Dumb Politics: The Big Picture 8. Our Mindless Debate About 9/11 9. We Can't Even Talk About How Stupid We Are Coda: Hope

Shenkman is an Optimist!

Both sides blame the other for America's current problems, and the American people seem blameless. Shenkman, however, takes aim at "the wisdom of the American people" that we so often hear referred. TV has dumbed politics down to the lowest possible level (emphasis on appearance, vs. substance; emphasis on emotional appeals), while reality has become vastly more complicated. (Anyone believe the "issues of the day" in Colonial times were as complex as today?) Democracy is rooted in the assumption that we are knowledgeable and rational - instead we are hard-wired to myths (eg. 9/11 was punishment for gays, etc., Saddam was behind Bin Laden, they dislike us for our democracy), and know less than necessary for informed decision making. Yet, over the past four decades American politics has put more and more power directly into the hands of ordinary voters through polls (even as they are manipulated to create the illusion of accuracy), initiatives, and primaries. Ignorance, disinclination to seek reliable sources of information, short-sightedness, and susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, and simplistic assertions are more rampant than ever. As evidence, Shenkman points out that presidential speech levels have dropped from the 12th-grade level to the 7th, fewer can state what the political parties stand for, and fewer read newspapers regularly. Shenkman also believes that our elites have failed us as well - using emotional words (eg. "freedom," "liberty"), and promulgating half-truths (if even that). "Our democracy is only 200 years old - what makes us think it is permanent?" (Arthur Schlesinger) In less than ten years America has lost millions of jobs with good wages, health care and pension benefits, while piling up trillions in debt for ruinous war and trade policies. At the same time our education and health care systems outpace all others in spending, while lagging in results, and our environment is seriously threatened on several fronts. Shenkman believes these problems can be cured through eg. mandating civics classes in college. Not likely - becoming an informed, objective citizen is too demanding, requiring extensive knowledge of facts, as well as statistical analysis and the design of experiments.

The dumbing of the American electorate

Many of us probably have suspected for a long time that our soundbit, infotainmented, and MTVed and Gameboyed culture is eroding our critical skills. As individuals, many of us simply may not care too much. After all, a man's entertainment center is his castle. But as citizens of a democracy, we ought to be concerned. As John Stuart Mill said in the 19th century, the democratic premise rests on the presence of an educated citizenry. Ideas and policies can neither be examined nor tested in the marketplace in the absence of an informed and critical public. Rick Shenkman's Just How Stupid Are We? not only wholeheartedly embraces Mill's observation, but also eliminates any remaining doubt about the growing inadequacy of the American electorate to participate responsibly in democracy. A few of the chilling facts with which the book is crammed: --half of us can name 4 characters from "The Simpsons," but less than a quarter can name more than one of the guaranteed rights in the First Amendment. --only 2 out of 5 voters can name all three branches of the federal government. --only 1 in 5 know that there are 100 federal senators. --only 1 in 7 can find Iraq on a map. --only one-fifth of Americans between ages 18-34 bother to keep up with current events. How to account for this frightening state of ignorance? And just as importantly, what to do about it? In answer to the first question, Shenkman suggests that the steady erosion of party and labor bosses, who despite their frequent misuse of power at least tended to keep their followers politically informed, has thrown the average voter to the mercy of shallow network commentary (if that) and corporate manipulation. Moreover, the two main political parties have in their respective ways encouraged the dumbing-down trend. Until recently, conservatives never took populism seriously anyway, and so didn't care how ill-educated citizens were. Progressives, on the other hand, embraced an almost mystical faith in the wisdom of the common man. The upshot, says Shenkman, is that we're now "in the pitiful position [where] neither liberals nor conservatives are prepared to say to The People: stop and pay attention. Liberals cannot because their ideology leaves them unprepared to find fault with The People. Conservatives have not because The People repeatedly put them in power." Bleak as the present crisis of political literacy is, Shenkman doesn't think that the decline is unstoppable. Some of the ideas for reform he floats include a restoration of electoral college autonomy, a return to state legislatures' selecting federal senators, and successful completion of a civics exam as a prerequisite for voting. These and similar policies, he only partly whimsically says, could be bound up in the passage of a "Too Many Stupid Voters Act." Shenkman's book is reader-friendly, insightful in places, and provocative throughout. But it may suffer from the same myopia that afflicted John Stuart Mill and o