US News & World Report: The Ignorant American Voter

[Hissyspit]

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2008/06/03/the-ignorant-american-voter.html

The Ignorant American Voter
Historian Rick Shenkman laments the breed in his new book, "Just How Stupid Are We?"

By Bret Schulte
Posted June 3, 2008

The long Iraq war. The bungled Hurricane Katrina response. The credit crunch. A quick look at the newspapers will give many voters reason to doubt the wisdom of America's political leaders. Unfortunately, Americans are doing little to educate themselves about their leaders and their policies, says bestselling author and George Mason University historian Rick Shenkman in his new book Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter. Shenkman cites some damning facts to make his case that Americans are ill-prepared to guide the world's most powerful democracy. Only 2 of 5 voters can name the three branches of the federal government. And 49 percent of Americans think the president has the authority to suspend the Constitution. But, for Shenkman, the severity of the problem snapped into focus after Sept. 11, 2001, when polls showed that a large number of Americans knew little about the attacks and the Iraq war that followed. He blames some of the public's misunderstanding on the White House message machine, but he argues that Americans did little to seek the truth. "As became irrefutably clear in scientific polls undertaken after 9/11...millions of Americans simply cannot fathom the twists and turns that complicated debates take," Shenkman writes. Shenkman spoke to U.S. News about the competence of the American voter. Excerpts:

What made you first ask the question, "Just how stupid are we?"
There's been no issue more important in the last generation than 9/11 and the Iraq war, and Americans didn't understand basic facts about it. I found that very disturbing, and I wanted to explain how to account for that and then how to have an intelligent conversation about this. It's a very sensitive subject. I want us to be able to sit down, calmly review the evidence, and one, like alcoholics, admit we have a problem; and, two, try to figure out how we remedy that problem.

What evidence most concerned you?
Even after the 9/11 Commission, a majority of Americans believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq even after the Commission said there weren't. Only a third of Americans understood that much of the rest of the world opposed our invasion. Another third thought the rest of the world was cheering our invasion, and a third thought the rest of the world was neutral. If you're going to get that much wrong about the most important issue facing us, it's hard to have much confidence in our democracy.

Widely disparaging the American voter as stupid must have made you a bit nervous.
Obviously, the title is provocative. We went with it because we want to draw attention to the issue. I think people understand our politics have gotten pretty dopey; and those people interested in learning why—I hope they pick up this book and see how the history of the last half century has brought us to this point. I see a paradox and an irony. At the same time America has become much more democratic—between the use of polls, referendums, and initiatives, the Voting Rights Act of the 1960—people have become less capable of exercising their democratic responsibilities.

How do you account for that?
Americans are getting what little information they have about the candidates from 30-second commercials, and that's insufficient as a basis for deciding how you're going to vote and what you think about our politics. In the past, people got most of their information from newspapers—that was a much better source. And when they were members of large mass groups like political parties or labor unions where their party bosses or labor bosses helped guide their thinking about politics, they had a better grasp of who at least was going to butter their bread better. Today people are really on their own, and the book tries to demonstrate that people can't handle their responsibilities as well as they ought to. In a competitive capitalistic society like ours, where there is a great emphasis on entertainment, people are not inclined to sit down and study a newspaper and figure out what's actually going on in politics. That leads to very superficial politics.

The voter you describe, supportive of the war and the Bush administration, sounds like a conservative. How do you defend this book as anything more than a liberal screed?
I know this plays into a narrative of contemporary conservatives where liberals are finding fault with working class Americans, but I hope I provide enough context in the book that people see this is not a liberal's manifesto. This is an American's manifesto about something that is really wrong with the country. One thing I hope to do is remind conservatives of their own history. It used to be you could always count on conservatives to raise questions about the people. But one reason Ronald Reagan won is that conservatives started celebrating the common man just like liberals always did. So now you have two main ideological groups in the country saying the voice of the people is the voice of God. As I say in the book, we're all populists now. That's fine, but the voice of the people often isn't the voice of God. The people make mistakes. And if you don't have conservatives pointing that out, then the system is out of whack. Democracy depends on having a sustained conversation about our weaknesses as well as our strengths.

MORE

[boobooday]

1. I hate this. Elitist bullshit. Another excuse to postpone democracy.

"The people make mistakes."

:wtf:

[Indenturedebtor]

4. It's a call to action IMO

Do more to educate the people starting when they're young and continuing throughout life.

[melody]

7. No, it isn't -- you don't empower people by demeaning them, you destroy them that way

The idea is to diminish Americans in their own eyes and making our takeover easier.

[Indenturedebtor]

8. Yeah you might be right

The fact is though that people here are DAMN ignorant when it comes to world politics, science, etc. Our educational system has failed so very many. I'm not being elitist here, but I'm in sales and I meet all sorts of different people every day and lemme tell you that most of them don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

[melody]

22. And I have European friends who are unimaginably ignorant about the US beyond Disneyland

Everyone is ignorant about something ... and everyone is informed about something. Choosing what is preferable to know is elitism in its essence.

[Indenturedebtor]

43. Knowing nothing about a foreign country and

Deciding whether or not to go to war with them based on the arguments from a one sided government. Would that be preferable to know?

Knowing the difference between economic policies that promote a strong middle class, and those that funnel all the money upwards in the hopes that some crumbs fall on your head.... that's something worth understanding isn't it?

How about knowing that pretty much every industrialised country in the world has better healthcare than we do? And so on.

I don't disagree with you that articles like the one above do serve to shake our confidence in one another. But really we're in trouble. Our cultural priorities and our educational system have really screwed the pooch in terms of current events/history/civics. Ignoring that won't make it go away.

How DOES Bush get 50% of the vote twice in a row?

[melody]

47. Bush didn't get 50% of the vote twice in a row

Is this still not making its way into the international press -- the first time, Bush one by "decision" (by a court largely picked by his father and his father's political slaves) and the second time, they simply stole the election. Bruce Nordham over in the Prince Papers in the UK did a five part piece on how Diebold stole the election.

That said, what Americans don't know is counterbalanced by information they do have that other nationals don't. Granted, I'd much rather we have a great deal of information that we don't, but the fault of that is in the school system nightmare we now have which is the result of thirty years of GOP attacks. It's not the fault of the people. Calling victims names and making fun of them is, well, somewhat less than human.

[boobooday]

21. THAT is the truth.

Ever since the founding fathers, those who fear real democracy have kept up a steady drumbeat of disdain, trying to convince us all that we have to be protected from the stupidity of our fellow citizens.

Meanwhile we get reamed by the stupidity + arrogance of the elites.

[melody]

5. Well said n/t

[magellan]

9. How so?

I KNOW people like this, otherwise decent people who to this day still think Saddam had WMD and therefore the invasion and ongoing occupation are justified, who believe we ought to bomb Iran, and who think Bush** is a "good man", just misguided. Obviously they're in thrall of something other than facts...and they aren't interested in being corrected.

Belief trumps the truth. The only antidote to that is education.

[boobooday]

19. I am totally FOR education - I agree it is the antidote

But this isn't the way to make the case. Not by calling people stupid. Foolish, inattentive, not as active in seeking information as some of us, but not stupid.

The "Saddam had WMD" meme was DRILLED into everyone's heads. A lot of people were too savvy to fall for it, but the constant drumbeat of fear can drown out a lot.

70% of the people now want to end the war. 70-80% think Bush is a loser. Even with the media still spreading bullshit, people eventually figured it out.

We can't buy it when elites tell us that our fellow citizens are incapable of making decisions. That's the excuse they use to deny real democracy.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. It's American anti-intellectualism gone wild

It's one thing to be ignorant. We're all ignorant about something.

The problem is when you NEED to be NOT ignorant (as when deciding how to vote) and you're too lazy to look behind the sound bites and do some independent investigation.

[boobooday]

28. Yes, it's a vicious circle, isn't it?

First, they tell you that education makes you an anti-American intellectual, then, by the way, if you don't seek education you are too stupid to vote.

And another thing, investigating and going too deep into motivations and asking too many questions also makes you un-American.

Ignorance thus becomes patriotism!

[magellan]

34. Okay, this is reminding me way too much

...of the efforts Congressional Dems make to avoid calling Bush** a LIAR. It's a scream. It's generous of them. And it's totally lame.

If someone's lying call them a liar. If someone's ignorant call them ignorant. These words exist for a REASON.

It's not like the people who still think Bush** is grand and Saddam had WMD aren't hearing the truth. They simply refuse to LISTEN. Sorry, but in my book that's not just ignorant, it's WILLFULLY ignorant.

The article is right. We need to turn things around again and get back to the days when a proper education was admired, not shunned.

[no limit]

16. Elitist bullshit? I had to check what site I was on after I read your comment

what the hell are you talking about? Every point this guy makes is 100% accurate. For fucks sake, half of this country thinks the president can suspend the constitution, if that doesn't alarm you then I don't know what would. You're right, throwing out idiotic terms like "elitist" is a great way to deal with this problem.

[boobooday]

20. Elite bullshit, yes.

But if you will recall, the popular vote went to Gore. Were the people stupid then? Or betrayed?

What I am saying is that this kind of rhetoric is the reason we have shit like the electoral college, and "superdelegates." Oh no, the people are too stupid for democracy!

And calling me "idiotic" doesn't seem too persuasive either.

[no limit]

25. I'm calling your term idiotic

I never called you an idiot, there is a big difference. Smart people sometimes say idiotic things.

What you did with your post is attack the messanger, and you used a term that has been used against the democrats for a long time, a term that really means absolutely nothing in this context.

Nobody is saying limit democracy. What is being said is that to have a functional democracy you need voters to be aware of certain important issues. If those voters don't exist we all need to do a better job educating those voters, there is nothing elitist about that. Yes, more people voted for Gore. But just because someone votes for Gore you think that makes them a smart person? There are plenty of democrats in this country that couldn't name the 3 branches of our government, voting democratic doesn't excuse that.

The right wing in this country loves a stupid electorate because they can get people that are on unemployment to be concerned about why somebody doesn't wear a flag pin instead of being concerned about why they are unemployed in the first place. We need to change that, and if people like you refuse to even acknowledge that there is a problem because it is insulting to americans then we will never be able to come up with a solution.

[boobooday]

27. I totally agree with you

Just because the RW has hijacked the term elitist and applied it to those who are educated doesn't mean it doesn't still mean something in the real world.

It means those who have power. Those who think that people are not worthy of democracy. How will you know when they are smart enough? Who will decide? Do you want to re institute literacy tests? How much will you require that they know before they may be considered worthy?

If somebody else gets to decide when the "people" are smart enough for democracy, then by definition we will never have it.

The solution is fighting for education, but also media reform, and other things like an election holiday, etc.

This guy isn't helping. See? What if I do "acknowledge" that people are stupid. What have we just accomplished BESIDES the insult?

[no limit]

29. But I dont know where you are getting that there should be some kind of test

I didnt see that in the article any where and Im pretty sure nobody is saying this.

The point is that the average american voter is dumb. Is that insulting? Maybe, but the bottom line is that it is true. The sad fact is that most of these people are perfectly happy, sometimes even proud, of their arrogance.

Being elite is not a bad thing. You are looking at the word in the sense that the media wants you to look at it. And that's part of the problem. Being elite intellectually should be something to be proud of, not some thing to be ashamed of. In this country people are proud of ignorance while they look down on "eliteness". It is time to change that. It is time to make being an idiot something to be ashamed off, not something to be proud of. And that can't happen if people like you try to frame this issue in a way that doesn't offend stupidity.

[boobooday]

38. Believe me, I'm all for the educated being the elite

I've spent too many years in school and too much money to not hold education in the highest esteem. I despise the fact that "elite" has come to mean "educated" because that was done deliberately, so that people could sneer at knowledge, and believe that they have something in common with the economic elites.

You don't have to be formally educated to be smart enough to vote. But I think framing the issue as "uninformed" rather than "stupid" will get us farther. And losing the anger helps too. People are not persuaded when they feel they are being condescended to, and even the most uneducated people can pick up on that.

Being an idiot is nothing to be proud of. I'm asking you who will be the judge of when the people are ready? Or could it be that if they were truly empowered through a more direct form of democracy, people might take staying informed more seriously?

[eridani]

41. I agree. Ignorance can be fixed, but stupidity is an innate trait n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

44. when the same mistake it's repeated many times that's called

stupidity

[housewolf]

2. We all have ADD

Such short attention spans... it's like we're on a fast-moving treadmill that keeps us running from thing to thing... NEXT...Next...Next...Next...Next

with no opportunity to think about the things we've been presented with

[melody]

3. More of the ongoing attempt to make Americans feel inferior and persuade them to give up

That's all this is ... they want us to abandon any attempts to engage in politics because we're "too stupid".

[Winterblues]

6. All I can say is Duhhhhhhh

Just watch any episode of Jay Walking from the Tonight Show..It makes a person cringe. Through just my own research if one could call it that, I would have to agree that a majority of Americans just don't know very much about their country, their government or the very world they live in..

[truedelphi]

14. I knew two people who voted for Bush in 2004

Because they "just absolutely hated that 'B...' Teresa Heinz Kerry." They just really ate up the RW talking points about the election.

One of these two was a guy who was one short step away from being on disability. When his health went down the drain sixty days after the election, he found out what Republican policies concerning disabilty can do to a disabled person.

[sinkingfeeling]

10. The general American population is sadly lacking in world knowledge. Every 'question on the street',

game show on TV, or general testing reaffirms that. People live their lives through the 'idiot box' and we all know how truthful the 'news' is these days. And how many stories have you seen that discuss Darfur, the politics of France, or the global effect of American consumerism on your TV screens? People in this country read less and less. Ask the average 22 year-old what books they've been reading for pleasure.

Knowledge about our government and the world is sorely lacking in the USA.

[no limit]

18. The only thing I have a problem with about what you just said is that you have to read books

to be smart.

The internet has long overtaken books. I am 22 years old and I would like to think I know more about the world around me than your average american. And I haven't read a book since high school.

[sinkingfeeling]

24. I agree whole heartedly that the internet has a wealth of real information. But I'm yet to read a

good novel or non-fiction 'book' on the internet. I like books because they can go into details, lacking on the internet.

[no limit]

26. No doubt

the main reason I don't read books is just because of time constraints. Im a person that likes to multi-task. Even if I am watching TV I am usually on the internet doing some thing. I do enjoy audio books from time to time.

[Bigmack]

11. Anybody who knows anything is elitist...

and should keep their mouths shut about people who not only don't know shit, but don't even suspect shit.

That's what I read in this thread, anyway. What could be more elitist than saying "We dare not tell people we are a nation ruled by stupidity, lest the stupid bastards think we're elitists, and we can't change those stupid bastards into knowledgeable citizens unless we flatter them and cajole them."

The country revels in willful ignorance. More people believe in angels than in evolution, a sizable percentage still believe there were WMDs in Iraq, and US voters elected a moron ... twice. (Pretending for a moment that I believe both elections were kosher.)

"Stuck on Stupid."

Meanwhile, in China......

[femrap]

17. Willful Ignorance....

that sums up most of our citizenry...or should I say, consumers?

"Dumb and proud of it" is their slogan!

[electropop]

12. "America has become much more democratic" - ???

Stolen elections due to caging, voter intimidation, vapor-voting machines, etc do not seem "more democratic" to me. Unless he meant to say "more Democratic" in the sense of a shift in party identification.

[Quantess]

13. "Stupid" is too harsh. Voters are just ignorant.

Voters are ignorant because they don't pay attention, don't have time, lack the interest in politics, or have been listening to the propaganda. But I think the authors know that, they just wanted a more controversial title.

[MountainLaurel]

15. Another one to add to the reading list n/t

[Disturbed]

30. Most Americans are not stupid.

The reasons that a large percentage of Americans are ignorant regarding how the Govt. operates
are many & varied. Many Americans are apathetic about Politics. Before & after Watergate many
became distrustful about Politicians & held them in disdain. That is still the case. Many people feel that what any Govt. does isn't relevant to their lives. Most people do not participate in politics, esp. on their local level. Many find that the structure of the Govt. is boring & too complicated to bother about. Many feel that only Natl. Elections can bring about any sort of change & others feel that even those don't matter. This topic has been discussed here many times. I could write a long thesis about this but will stop now.

[dysfunctional press]

35. apparently you haven't encountered most americans...

at least half of them are below average.

[ProgressiveFool]

31. I think it's a profoundly disrespectful piece, and mostly fluff anyway

So how would the guy fix it? All that, and all he comes up with is a mandatory weekly current events quiz? We are so fucked, then.

The author doesn't take into account that, if things were actually going well, Joe Average Voter really doesn't need to know a whole lot about what's going on. That's what happened in 2000. Things were good, and most thought Bush or Gore didn't make much difference. The votes were close enough that only a few shenanigans were needed to win. Then we had 9/11, and fear kept people stupid for another year or two. People woke up too late for 2004 (plus Kerry was a bad candidate), but since 2005, people have been getting wise, as they need to.

That's not to say that there hasn't been an insidious rot in the system, perhaps for decades, and that the rot hasn't now reached critical mass. It took Bush, though, to finally break the thing by pushing the corruption too far, too brazenly.

I think the fact that 70% of the people are against the war, 70% disapprove of Bush, etc., points to the fact that enough people have been forced to learn what they needed to know.

Now we just have to make sure that Bush doesn't get the same post-presidential buffing that Reagan did, and then hopefully we won't have to endure a future Idiot-In-Chief.

[Uncle Joe]

32. I believe from this interview the author is missing an important point, the Internet is changing

that dynamic in at least three ways that address the author's concerns.

1. The Internet works as a rapid response forum against misleading 30 second commercials.

2. The Internet fosters more reading than television ever did, even newspapers are going on line.

3. Support groups are forming on line to help guide thinking about complex issues, or to clarify confusing legislation regarding the best interests of like minded individuals or "buttering of the bread" as the author states.

I believe the reasons I stated above were among the prime motivations for the ownership and CEOs of the corporate loving media to influence their minions either explicitly or implicitly to slander, libel and trash Al Gore and enable Bush to power. The corporate media was afraid of an educated or informed populace; as they would be more difficult to manipulate for the benefit of corporate supremacy.

Those 30 second commercials are a prime source of money for them, not to mention every other commercial paid for by a corporation not during an election season. The corporations are the corporate media's clients not the American People. The people are only customers or consumers to them and as such don't merit the same fiduciary obligation of loyalty from the corporate media as the corporations. This is why the people are being dumbed down, I hope the author covers corporate media responsibility more in depth in his book than he did in this interview.

"How do you account for that?"

"Americans are getting what little information they have about the candidates from 30-second commercials, and that's insufficient as a basis for deciding how you're going to vote and what you think about our politics. In the past, people got most of their information from newspapers—that was a much better source. And when they were members of large mass groups like political parties or labor unions where their party bosses or labor bosses helped guide their thinking about politics, they had a better grasp of who at least was going to butter their bread better. Today people are really on their own, and the book tries to demonstrate that people can't handle their responsibilities as well as they ought to. In a competitive capitalistic society like ours, where there is a great emphasis on entertainment, people are not inclined to sit down and study a newspaper and figure out what's actually going on in politics. That leads to very superficial politics."


Thanks for the thread, Hissyspit.

[Bigmack]

33. "Age of American Unreason" by Susan Jacoby

She starts out by quoting Hofstadter's "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" published in 1963. Hofstadter wrote that anti-intellectualism is built into American culture and is subject to fluctuations. Jacoby adds "America is now ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism, and anti-intellectualism - as opposed to the recognizable cyclical strains of the past.... This condition is aggressively promoted by everyone, from politicians, to media executives, whose livelihood depends on a public that derives its opinions from sound bites...."

Two thirds of Americans are unable to identify DNA as the key to heredity... One in five adults think the sun revolves around the earth...Nine out of 10 do not understand radiation and what it does to the body. (National Science Foundation)

We've always had an anti-intellectual element in our culture... but this time it's for serious.

[cloudbase]

36. If one doesn't know about something, then that's ignorance.

If they willfully don't want to learn something important enough to affect their lives on a daily basis, then stupid is a word that is appropriate.

Take a peek here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3373471

I suppose the really important stuff has to do with American Idol, Paris Hilton, and whatever else might be tomorrow's subjects of discussion.

[Breeze54]

37. 'George Mason University " ? Isn't that a RW college?

:shrug:

It's the SILENT and lying M$M, not the voters!! :grr:

[followthemoney]

39. I am elite and proud of it.

I read about 25 books per year. I find most Americans unaware of who they are and ignorant of the world they live in.

It is as if most were born yesterday. And lived that day in a coal mine. In West Virginia.

Such poor deluded beings.

[MedleyMisty]

40. My apartment is decorated with bookshelves

that are double and triple stuffed. And there's huge piles of books at the side of the bed and around the computers and at the foot of the bookshelves because the shelves are full.

And I'm 27 - so a bit older than 22, but yeah.

I also spend a lot of time on the internet - but really you learn a lot more general knowledge from books. The internet is good for learning about current events, what's behind other people's eyeballs (I became so disillusioned with humanity when I found message boards), and the occasional research about topics that the local library and bookstores are sadly lacking in - but there I run into "You must subscribe to read the rest of this article." a lot. Damn gatekeepers.

It's not at all elitist to point out the vast and incredible ignorance about things that matter. It's one thing to not know much about astrophysics. It's entirely another to not realize that the war propaganda was false until over a million people have died for it. There are consequences to ignorance. (Yeah, I'm pretty much a consequentialist when it comes to morality.)

And I do realize that knowledge is not widely available - like there are some subjects that I am quite interested in but I've read the very few books available in the library three times already, I've seen every single article worth anything on the internet that I didn't have to pay for, and there's absolutely nothing about it at the corporate bookstores. But that's mostly rather esoteric subjects - all that you need to know to be able to participate in a democracy is available. If you have the free time to watch TV, you have the time to learn the basics of living in a democracy. So if people choose to not do that and accept corporate fascism and war and destruction of the planet instead, don't expect me to coddle them and fluff their ego and be nice to them. Not when I have to live in the hell that their chosen and wilful ignorance helped to create.

My dear sweet bibliophile of a husband works at the library downtown and they have a card for homeless people so they can check out one book at a time. So your economic situation is not a good excuse.

I will say that you do have to have some free time. And I can identify with the sting of being called stupid - I came very close to killing myself while working at Arby's, in part because of how the customers would treat me like I had less of a brain than an amoeba.

But in my case that actually was elitism and class prejudice. I can't see any class prejudice or threat to democracy in pointing out how ignorant Americans are, and generally I'm pretty sensitive to that stuff. I think you're jumping from point A, pointing out that Americans in general are ignorant, to some random point that's not on the maps that most people are using.

My point B would be that in some magical world where we topple the oligarchy and actually become a democracy, we totally overhaul pretty much everything and create a public education system that teaches critical thinking, a media that is free and reports critcally, an economic system that creates security and gives people the freedom and time to learn, and basically do all that we can to bring people out of the Dark Ages and into the twenty first century mentally before the Dark Ages mentality combined with twenty first century technology kills us.

Since we're not going to become an actual democracy any time soon, right now I just have to encourage people to learn one on one - like I've been giving my mother books to read and am thinking about figuring out some way or finding some local program to donate books to people. And I also need to blow off steam - I am not so much of a saint that I can look at a dying planet and constantly be compassionate and sympathetic and nice to those responsible. And the people who choose to remain ignorant about things that directly affect our lives and thereby give up control to others don't bear nearly as much responsibility as the members of the oligarchy, but they do have some blood on their hands.

[Echo In Light]

42. Official Culture in America: A Natural State of Psychopathy? By Laura Knight-Jadczyk

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/official_culture.htm

[Supersedeas]

45. they tried stupid 'n '00 and in '04, will they try stupid again

[demo dutch]

46. Isn't this the total truth! This country is such an infantile nation! We rank 17th on the

on the list of democracies in the world, & not surprising