Election Day Special: Just How Stupid Are We? Author Richard Shenkman
Richard Shenkman is an associate professor of history at George Mason University and a New York Times best-selling author. His latest book is Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter .
In the book Shenkman provides some frightening statistics: most Americans cannot name their representatives in Congress, only 20% hold a passport and 30% don't know about the Holocaust.
I don’t believe it’s helpful to call the American people "stupid." It’s a generalization that’s too glib to be more than an eye-catching headline and basically we used the word stupid in the title of the book just to catch people’s attention. As a group, American’s can’t be classified as stupid; nor can you say that they are smart, which is what you hear from politicians all the time.
What we do know is that most Americans are “low information voters.” When you don’t even have a majority of them knowing what the three branches of government are it’s very difficult to hold a serious conversation about politics. We have politicians using slogans and sound bytes to try to gain support for one position or another and it’s all conducted at a very superficial level.What does this say about America?
You get the government you deserve, you get the politics you deserve and you get the media you deserve. And one of the reasons why the politicians often sound so dumb on television is because they understand who the audience is and they know what is going to trigger a positive response from the voters; It’s not going to be a detailed discussion on policy, because that’s going to go over the head of most people.
So they reduce their appeals to some bumper sticker slogan. And that’s obviously a situation that’s unwelcome. You can’t run the world’s largest democracy on that basis.
So therefore, are dumb Americans voting for dumb politicians?I spent a lot of time in Washington D.C. and I actually believe that the politicians are not dumb as a group. They tend to be pretty smart. But they are hampered in their ability to do a good job because they are working for people who don’t know very much.
So do you think politicians dumb themselves down for the American people?
There’s no question about it.
What motivates people to vote for a candidate?Political scientists say the most important factor is how their parent’s vote. Family shapes political values and relationships early on.
Another factor, and here’s where you get into things that you can’t measure, is likability. People vote on personality.
Plus, there are demographic characteristics of voters that make them lean either toward the Democratic Party or toward the Republican Party. If you go to church weekly, you have a much better chance of being a Republican than being a Democrat. That’s a fact. If you drive a Volvo, shop at Whole Foods or read the Village Voice, you are more likely to be a Democrat.Nowadays people have more access to information via television, websites, radio, newspapers… yet are we stupider in reference to politics than we were fifty years ago?
Fifty years ago, social scientists started surveying what Americans actually know about politics and their government. They found out Americans knew very little.
But now, if anything, they know even less, which is shocking. In 1940, six out of ten Americans hadn’t gotten past the eighth grade. Today, most American’s have attended college. The fact that we are testing at the same level and in some cases lower levels than our parents and grandparents is absolutely shocking.
Why the increasing ignorance?
The two most important causes to this level of increasing ignorance are television and the collapse of the two-party system.
Television is factor because it’s a terrible communicator of information. It’s a medium of entertainment. It doesn’t allow us to get real knowledge and voters get most of what they know from TV. People see candidates so they are inclined to make judgment based on personality, rather than if that person is a leader or brilliant, factors that would have impressed people more before television.
Plus, when we had a vibrant two-party system, the voters were informed by a party boss or a labor boss, who gave them advice on how to vote and why. Today, we celebrate the independent voter who is not told what to do or think. But, the voter who is left on his own winds up picking up information about politics in the most superficial disconcerting ways, by watching 30 second commercials, by judging politicians by how they look or appear in a debate or five-second news byte.
That isn’t a way to run a democracy.
Are you blaming the media for making Americans stupid?
No. I’m saying that if people aren’t members of mass institutions like political parties or labor unions, it is very difficult for them, on their own, to figure out what is going on. The Republicans figured that out in the 1990’s, which is why they started organizing evangelical churches from one end of the country to the other. In other words, they learned to use a mass institution to create foot soldiers in their army of supporters, and it’s what gave George W. Bush a victory in 2004.
So, who is to blame for American’s stupidity?
If you want to blame anybody, look in the mirror. Ultimately, if you want to have a democracy it’s not going to be any better than the people are. If you don’t want to take that responsibility, and I say this somewhat glibly, but I also mean it, move to a place like Russia, where the leaders are happy to make all the decisions for you. If you want to live in a democracy, educate yourself.
The uneducated voter is susceptible to wily politicians, so they are going to count on the stupidity and ignorance of voters to push them around and get elected that way. You want to live in that kind of country? I don’t. I want to live in a country of smart voters.
So, weigh in on a debate we're having in the Dumb As A Blog office. Is the New Orleans JazzFest stupid or smart?
Wow. I don’t’ have an opinion on that (laughs). I’m in favor of jazz festivals. So rah rah, go for it.
