Summary Of Just How Stupid Are We

The book I read was Just How Stupid Are We? By: Rick Shenkman. And this book is about how ignorant our American voters have become and how it has affected our political system and how it weakens the American people’s voice and our democratic government today.
The book opens up talking about the up and coming election of the time of the book and how the American voter believes whole heartily that there is something extremely wrong with our American political system. And of course the Democrats believe it’s the Republicans to mostly blame. And on the other side the Republicans say it’s the policies of the democrats at fault of this American political pitfall. But they can all agree and believe on the fact that the American people

aren’t the blame.
The book also talks about how we shouldn’t look at the government as the problem but we should look at the “wisdom of the people”.

Because we are the ones who elect the people in the offices of the government that make these policies, which we the people who in the first place elected them to make these policies, complain about them. But it’s most likely and sad that the average American person doesn’t understand this concept. And Rick Shenkman explains that the people are not paying attention to our American politics and as time goes on people are listening watching and even acknowledging less and less and he says that they should be paying more attention more and more. Saying that technologies like television has somewhat and have dumbed down the American people’s intelligence in politics and dumbed it down to the basest level of our American politics. When we should become smarter because the politics and this system is becoming more

complex.
Shenkman also says that we should come together as a people first, before we can make institutions that run our nation. And what he means by that is that we must come together and accept the fact that we are the government and we make our policies. So we are to blame because we are the ones who vote for the people into office that make our policies. Because we vote for them to represent us and so basically these failed and “unnecessary” policies are a representation of us.
And the book goes on explaining the hoax and myths that people believe and the little white lies that we hear and turn us in the wrong direction because of the little information we know and complexity of our government. So it’s not hard to convince us or make us believe something obviously not really completely true.

This book relates to many different aspects of life. And since this book was made in 2008 it is pretty much really relevant to us American people today. And what Rick Shenkman is very true because less and less people vote and many people who vote lack pretty much everything important in an election and lack the knowledge in basic politics.

I learned in my studies in class that the younger you are is more likely for you not to vote rather if you were much older.

And I also learn that the older to get the more conservative you are making the voting processes almost useless because it’s much sided towards the conservative beliefs. Also learned that the younger people are a lot less likely to watch or read the news and keep up with today’s problems and information so the younger people are basically voting blindly in the elections. And when this Politian that is in office that makes a policy that is failing or plainly just dumb these voters or non-voters that went into this vote blind or just simply did not vote, go on and go on, on how the government is ruining our American politics. So this book and what it says is really relevant in todays and even many years ago and to come

politics.
Also the books relates to what I learn in class because it says that our voters don’t know what’s going on and just simply vote on a person’s outside looks or a catchy slogan that the Politian comes up with and that’s exactly what happens in today’s voting processes. Therefore messing up everything we see in our democratic government.
My teaching also has taught me that the new technologies like television have decreased the voter’s common knowledge in politics and how it has decreased the viability of the people’s votes. This is also explained in the book.

In my opinion I totally agree on what the author has said and what he argues and explains. I think the average American person doesn’t know the basics in our American system of politics. When obviously we should because we are supposedly the greatest country in the world. And I wonder how we work so well and a lot of us Americans don’t know who our vice president is. And how do foreign people know more information about our American politics and how it works than we Americans that live here and live in this government system. It shows how simply dumb we are in politics and how ignorant we are when it comes to the disasters in our system. I admit I don’t know a lot about our politics or I don’t really keep up with our news and local governments but I think I should as I grow into an adult.