THE TRUTH ABOUT THE AMERICAN VOTER

I have just finished reading Just How Stupid Are We? by Rick Shenkman. He is a liberal academic who hates Bush(and the Iraq decision in particular) and is obviously upset at how American voters select such terrible Republican presidents. However, the book goes beyond partisan politics and examines American voting patterns. It is clear that the average American voter makes political judgments without a lot of knowledge. The author summarizes numerous studies that indicate the variety of factors that come into play. However, this is not just a recent phenomena. He focuses more on the period since polling and television were introduced and attacks "the Myth of the People."

• For a number of years after 9/11 voters continued to believe that Saddam had contact with al Qaeda in spite of evidence otherwise. FOX news viewers were more likely to hold this position than NPR viewers. (Bush & Cheney obviously used and reinforced this false assumption for their own purposes).
  
• In 1978 only 30% of the American people knew that a Representative served a two-year term.
• In 1991 only 25% of the American people knew a US Senator served a six-year term.
• 70% believe in "crackpot" conspiracy theories with regard to the assassination of JFK (thanks to Oliver Stone's movie?).
• People really don't know the differences between "liberal" and "conservative."
• When one of his students was required to listen to NPR for an hour, he called it "torture."
  
• Young people today know less than young people 40 years ago.
• The average age of a CNN viewer is 60.
• While voters do not follow the campaigns closely enough to be able to say where the candidates stand on a variety of issues, they often pay close attention to the one or two issues they really care about.
  
• Voters tend to remember personal information about candidates rather than hard facts about issues.
• The public's opinion about issues is usually muddled.
• Polls are themselves a form of manipulation in the hands of strategists who know how to use them to frame issues in a way that meets with the public's approbation.
• but it was actually the much-revered JFK who understood ahead of everybody else how to use TV to win over the voters.
• TV was worse than manipulative. It was shallow.
• Debates have become theater.
• As for local TVn news--well,, if network news is puperficial, local TV news is all but brain-dead.
• When most of our early presidents needed to make a major speech they sat down and wrote it. This is unimaginable nowadays.