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Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter | 
 enlarge | Author: Rick Shenkman
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
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You Save: $14.15 (57%)
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Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 38322
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0465077714
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.973
EAN: 9780465077717
ASIN: 0465077714
Publication Date: June 9, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Politicians tell us constantly that they trust the wisdom of "The American People." New York Times best-selling author Rick Shenkman explains why we shouldn't--at least when it comes to politics. 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 something has gone terribly wrong with American politics. But what exactly? Democrats blame Republicans and Republicans blame Democrats. Greedy corporate executives, rogue journalists, faulty voting machines, irresponsible defense contractors--we blame them, too. The only thing everyone seems to agree on, in fact, is that the American people are entirely blameless. In Just How Stupid Are We?, best-selling historian and renowned myth-buster Rick Shenkman takes aim at our great national piety: the wisdom of the American people. The hard truth is that American democracy is more direct than ever--but voters are misusing, abusing, and abdicating their political power. Americans are paying less and less attention to politics at a time when they need to pay much more: Television has dumbed politics down to the basest possible level, while the real workings of politics have become vastly more complicated. Shenkman offers concrete proposals for reforming our institutions--the government, the media, civic organizations, political parties--to make them work better for the American people. But first, Shenkman argues, we must reform ourselves.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
 A superficial approach. There are better books available. December 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Just How Stupid Are We" addresses the fairly obvious point that too many American voters are not well enough educated or informed to vote responsibly. It's not clear who Shenkman is writing to or what he really hoped to accomplish by writing. While he states directly that his writing "is intended for the general public", throughout the book he appears to address select groups such as those in education and the media. Shenkman says that reform of "our system" is plausible as well as desirable; and that "if we want a country of smart voters who can't be played like a fiddle we can certainly have one." But he utterly fails to address how that could be accomplished. If the book is for the general public as he states, he does not provide a single concrete step that an individual can take to become a better informed voter, unless one counts these two ludicrously general statements from the chapter that is supposed to point the way forward: "I find the internet promising" and "I find blogging promising". You will find no elaboration on those points whatsoever, not any references to actual websites or blogs one might trust as an antidote to our "being misled by the media".
For answers and real solutions to the problem of why people vote as they do and what can be done about it, one would be much better served by reading "The Political Brain" by Drew Westen, whose decades-long scholarship Shenkman dismisses in a simplistic and misleading one-liner. Even though Westen's book is mainly written for politicians and those running political campaigns, it is surprisingly relevant cover-to-cover to the interested general reader. For a thorough discussion of widespread ignorance in the public square, read instead "The Age of American Unreason" by Susan Jacoby.
 Common Sense for an Uncommon Today December 5, 2008
I like that the author stays away from the partisanship, even as much as calling it into his equation of what ails the public discourse. I find this book a very refreshing view of how politics has become to be the slogan and soundbite culture of today, and why the public simply follows along. Many observations are simple and direct, and spot on. Calling out those who cannot look past party loyalty, lack of civics culture, and a society bent on consumerism are all cited as reasons that the American voter has become so dumb. It's well worth a read if, for anything, to provide something to reflect on for a few days.
 This could have been such a good book December 1, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
What an amazing title and what a mediocre book. I was very disappointed. It fails to deliver any enlightening reasons for (or realistic solutions to) the civic ignorance we all know to be pervasive.
Most of the book is an unfocused, rambling attack on conservatives because they "pretend" to care for "The People" when in fact, according to the author, they don't. He "proves" this by citing obscure conservative writers from 50 years ago. Ronald Reagan did not agree with these people, according to the author, so he therefore must have been a "media manipulator."
And so it goes, for 183 pages.
There are criticisms of Democrats/Liberals as well, but the nature of these criticisms--and the point of them--is unclear. Perhaps they are just the author's attempt to bring balance to an anti-Bush screed masquerading as something nobler.
I did get one good thing out of it. In the acknowledgments the author thanks his agent, William Clark. If Mr. Clark can sell a project like this to a publisher like Basic Books, he can sell anything to anybody! I recommend that all aspiring authors contact him. The guy must be magic.
Not so fast! November 9, 2008
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
I purchased this book with great anticipation because I am also exasperated about our country's seeming lack of interest or knowledge in domestic and foreign affairs and our mostly unenlightened view of politics. Mr. Shenkman may have provided some interesting observations about responses to surveys and the book has some laudable points to make but it fails to pass the test of real knowledge for two primary reasons:
1)He falls victim to some of the ills he posits as the cause of our societal ignorance. For example, he notes that both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush used Social Security surpluses to hide the impacts of their tax cuts. It is true that the government has not been honest about what is happening to Social Security receipts (Congress has spent them all). But I would ask: What impacts? In both the Readgan and Bush cases, the federal government raised more revenue after the tax cuts than before and it is a fact that Bush never instituted tax cuts - he instead signed a bill into law to cut marginal tax rates. Since most of the mainstream media has only a passing acquaintance with economics, they routinely report on the tax cuts, which, of course, never happened. If you get more of something in the future by taking an action, the effect of the action is not a cut, but an increase. I am guessing that many people who read this will be astounded or disagree, but, as Casey Stengle used to say "You can look it up." Using Office of Management Budget figures we can learn that the US Government collected over $800 billion more in taxes in 2007 than it did in 2001. This is a decrease? What no one wants to confront is that fact that spending is the cause of these massive deficits - not taxes. During the entire eight years of the Clinton Administration, the U.S. Government spent 148 million more that it took in - a relatively modest amount. During the entire Bush Administration, the Federal Government spend 2 trillion more than it took in, even though it took in almost 4 trillion more in taxes than under the Clinton Administration! Therefore, tax rate cuts actually appear to have lessened the impact of the increased spending. I did not mean for this to become a treatise on fiscal policy, it is just to show that even our author seems to have a limited grasp on some issues while postulating that the American Political Body is stupid. This is not to say that some segments of our population did not pay more taxes under Bush - the rich actually paid a higher percentage of overall taxes under Bush than under Clinton. Facts are inconvenient things!
2) The second issue is related to the first - who can you trust to tell you the truth? Have you ever seen a story in the media that just related the facts as I have noted? Maybe people still believe that Saddam Hussien was collaborating with Al Qaeda because they don't trust the main stream media to tell the truth. The 911 Report actually notes that Iraq and Al Qaeda were collaborating, however, the collaboration was not linked to 911. Another reason not to trust the media is their complete lack of curiosity about their favorite politicians. I have not read any major stories in the main stream media about all of the Democratic party elected officials who where not only urging, but demanding, that Bush invade Iraq. Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy, Joe Biden and others were demanding that the president invade and sooner rather than later. However, when things went awry, none of those politicians were held to account by the media.
This is not to say that Mr. Shenkman has not raised an important question. However, this slanted rhetoric and failure to link cause and effect make this a must skip book.
Wow! Save your money. November 5, 2008
5 out of 12 found this review helpful
In this book, Rick Shenkman puts forward the notion that the (relatively) uneducated and ill-informed need to smarten up and take their civic duty more seriously. (For the record, I couldn't agree more. I bought the book because I share that sentiment.)
However, he immediately and unrelentingly totes out his liberal, America-hating, GWU-echoing, revisionist historian background and begins an onslaught of the "myths" of American history, lore, and culture. (Before you purchase this book, do a quick "due diligence" Google search of the author in order to understand the source, flavor, and depth of his liberal bias. It will serve you well if you should end up buying this book.)
Shenkman's political bias is clear and unmistakable from the first chapter on. I stopped trying to make it through within a couple chapters; the invective against anything remotely right of center quickly became an intellectual turn-off, and the arrogance that permeated the prose had the effect of dumping a can of Barlett pears into a pot of chili. Uggh! I'll pass, thanks.
Hope this helps you make your purchase decision. I wouldn't, but hey, that's me.
Jim
Albuquerque, NM
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