Breaking News: Americans Becoming Dumber About Politics

I’m still mulling over the final days of the Democratic primary, said by some to have ended on May 26 after the votes from North Carolina and Indiana were tallied, and the recently deceased Tim Russert, now rumored by his colleagues to be under investigation for sainthood, proclaimed Obama the Democratic nominee.

Immediately after Russert’s proclamation, pundits from around the country answered the call to once again demand that the nation’s first female presidential candidate withdraw from the race. Mark this well: Hillary Clinton was the first presidential candidate in American history to be asked by our shameless media to drop out.

With the travesty of the Democratic primary in mind, no Clinton supporter should be surprised to learn that decade by decade, Americans have become dumber about politics.

In today’s Boston Globe, Rick Shenkman writes:

“THE THOUGHT occurs to almost everybody, I would suppose, that politics today is conducted at a lower level than it used to be. Not many voted against William Howard Taft because he was fat or Abraham Lincoln because he was thin. One can't imagine Franklin Roosevelt being judged by how badly he bowled or how convincingly he knocked back a tumble of scotch. Indeed, studies show that the speeches presidents gave a half-century ago were pitched at the 12th-grade level - five grades above the level of speeches given by presidents over the last generation.

“Which brings up a paradox. Decade by decade Americans are getting smarter and smarter, and decade by decade our politics is getting dumber and dumber. How can we explain it?

“In 1940 six in 10 Americans hadn't gone past the eighth grade. Today, most Americans have attended college. Partly as a result of their added schooling, Americans today are more tolerant of dissent and less racist. But surveys show that increased schooling doesn't correspond to a higher aptitude for civics. To put this bluntly: Americans today are no better informed about politics than their grade-school educated grandparents. With respect to some subjects they are less well-informed.”

Shenkman’s article gets even scarier:

“Like Americans in the 1940s, Americans today barely understand basic facts about our government. Only two in 10 know we have 100 US senators. Only four in 10 know we have three branches of government and can name them. Only a third know that Congress has the power to declare war.

“They are no better informed about the identity of the people running the government. Only four in 10 could identify William Rehnquist, the long-serving chief justice of the US Supreme Court, more than two decades into his term. Only two in 10 can name the current secretary of defense, Robert Gates. A Harvard study by Thomas Patterson found that Americans today are less able to articulate the differences between the two major parties than voters in the 1950s.”

Having targeted television news coverage as a major culprit in the dumbing down of American voters, Shenkman concludes by stating the obvious:

“If politicians were angels, we wouldn't need smart voters. But they aren't. One of the most pressing issues of our times, though few talk about it, is therefore the acknowledgement of the limits of contemporary voters and strategies to make them smarter.”

To read Shenkman’s article in its entirety, go here.

P.S.

Gotta love the title of Rick Shenkman’s recently published book: "Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter."