Rick Shenkman: Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter (2008, Basic Books)

This book asks an important question. Unfortunately, it doesn't answer it, and it comes off rather stupid itself. Clearly, voters are not very well informed about most issues. In fact, you could dig up quite a bit of evidence showing that members of Congress don't necessarily know what they're talking about. It's possible that some of this is because people are getting dumber. There are a number of possible reasons for that, with television and the PR and advertising industries that cohabit with it the most obvious candidate. Jane Jacobs, in Dark Ages Ahead, offered several other candidates, like the decline of traditional families, and credentialism in education. Another possibility is that the world is getting more complex at a rate that swamps out even real gains in individual expertise. I think that's the single biggest part of it, and that it manifests itself not just by leaving the uninitiated behind -- it also seems to be confusing so-called experts, which in turn confuses the hell out of everyone else. (E.g., try talking to economists about the role of speculation in rising oil prices -- then follow that up talking to politicians and pundits.)

Shenkman, who is a history professor at George Mason University, tries to suss this out anecdotally, which might be entertaining but is unlikely to get to the root of the problem. (Like his proposal for a Too Many Stupid Voters Act is unlikely to fix the problem.) One might instead try looking at outcomes: Do votes accurately advance the voter's considered interests? Do voters even grasp their real interests? Are there political choices to match the voters' preferences, and if not why not? It seems obvious that the political successes of the Republican Right at best benefit a small portion of the people who vote for them, so those outcomes are arguably due to stupid voters (whether ignorant or manipulated). Too bad the book doesn't sort them out better.