Book Review: As voters, just how stupid are Americans?

[man4allcats]

I found this review and thought it worth sharing. The book, which I have not yet read myself, is entitled Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth about the American Voter. The author is Rick Shenkman. An excerpt from the review by Gerry Donaghy follows:

During the fourth season of The Simpsons, there was an episode where the residents of Springfield gathered in a contest to see who could kill the largest number of snakes on what is called Whacking Day. After Bart and Lisa (with the help of Barry White) show the townspeople the error of state-sanctioned snake slaughter, Springfield's Kennedy-esque mayor arrives with an armload of pre-killed snakes, inciting boos and hisses from the now-enlightened crowd. Mayor Quimby hollers back, "You're all a bunch of fickle mush heads," to which the crowd responds, "He's right. Give us hell, Quimby."

The animated incident is a wonderfully realized crystallization of the problems discussed in Rick Shenkman's book Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth about the American Voter. As everyone is rushing to assign blame for the current financial crisis in Washington and on Wall Street, there has been little mention of the role voters played. President George W. Bush's approval ratings have sunk to subterranean lows, and, for all the hand wringing going on, no one has addressed the obvious question: why did a smidge over 50% of the voting public re-elect a president whose clearly-stated policies created such turmoil?

Shenkman's answer is that we aren't as smart as we like to think we are, and the evidence he presents is fairly damning. For example, in recent surveys, only 21 percent of Americans polled could name the current secretary of defense, only 35 percent knew that Congress can override a presidential veto, and, appallingly, 49 percent believe that the president can suspend the Constitution. "Why are we so deluded?" Shenkman asks. In answering his own question, he goes on to say, "The error can be traced to our mistaking the unprecedented access to information with the actual consumption of it." This in turn lays the groundwork for the other corroding influences on our collective political prudence: myth, television, and political polling.

Ultimately, however, because of our reluctance to address myths of The People and their collective wisdom (or lack thereof), we are doomed to choose elected officials not because of where they stand on issues of substance, but, rather, because they seem like a guy we'd want to have a beer with or because they remind us of ourselves. Shenkman even goes so far as to say that even suggesting that the voters may not be in the best position to judge the issues is political taboo.

- Emphasis added -

More here...

[theoldman]

1. Maybe voters are not stupid, they are ignorant.

Jay Leno has shown numerous times just how ignorant we are. The worst part is that people are proud of being ignorant.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Willful ignorance = evil.

To be proud of your ignorance is evil....
To denigrate intelligence is evil.
The Neo-Con/Fundie campaign has worked very hard to bring out the worst in the worst.
They manipulate the ignorant into thinking that being smart is bad...and they have found a very fertile audience.
It is part of the 14 signs of Fascism...

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

Even the British agreed after the 2004 "election"..

Remember this....?

[stillcool]

2. Before I had access to the net..

I was totally ignorant. Sometimes I wonder what the world would look like to me, if there were no internet. I wouldn't even know which books to read. I'd go to the library and pick up some bogus bullshit written by a political hack and think I was getting the inside scoop.