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

By Rick Shenkman

Book Overview

Best-selling author Rick Shenkman takes aim at our great national piety: the wisdom of the American people 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...