We're F*****

“Young people by many measures know less today than young people forty years ago. And their news habits are worse. Newspaper reading went out in the sixties along with the Hula Hoop. Just 20% of young Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 read a daily paper. And that isn't saying much. There's no way of knowing what part of the paper they're reading. It is likelier to encompass the comics and a quick glance at the front page than dense stories or the budget. The average age of CNN's audience is sixty. Only 11% of 18-34 year-olds say that they regularly click on news web pages.”
-Mother Jones

At the last TNG mixer I had a conversation with frequent contributor Tyrone, who believes that Barack Obama will move into the oval office next year despite John McCain’s relentless gutter politics and the popular frenzy surrounding vice-nightmare Sarah Palin (I can see Russia from my house!). Tyrone thinks that the poll numbers look good for Obama. I think that Barracuda will be hunting moose on the White House lawn for the next four or more.

As I’ve said before, I’m not a political scientist and this community blog has no shortage of commenters who are smarter than me and willing to let me know why I’m wrong—and I hope I am. However in spite of promising demographics, an unpopular president, and an electorate anxious about war and economic issues, I can’t dismiss the single most important factor in modern day presidential elections: the stupidity of the American people.

Many of my friends are exasperated over the shock and awe of the McCain smear campaign. How can this jackal lie so often, viciously, and openly and still see his poll numbers rise? How can the American people believe McCain is a maverick and Palin an agent of change considering their records? How could they vote for the Republican party after eight years of clusterfuck nation? The answer is as simple as the average American.

This country elected President George Bush because they felt he was like them. Twice. In a sense, they looked into his eyes and saw his soul. Unsurprising, they saw nothing more than their own deluded image staring back at them. As you already know, he was the kind of man they wanted to have a beer with. Unfortunately, they failed to realize he was an alcoholic. Eight years later, the American people will look into the mirror of two republican politicians and again fail to see authoritarian and tribal mindsets, an assault on reason, or brittle egos prone to mean spirited vindictiveness. They will fail to see policy over personality and truth over spin. They will fail to understand nuance instead of resorting to simplistic notions of good vs. evil. They will fail to accept the civic responsibility of being an informed citizen instead of numbing itself senseless with the distractions of a fat and comfortable nation. They will fail America. They will fail themselves. Why am I certain? Because none of us who stare into the mirror and see ourselves for what we are, warts and all, have any reason to think otherwise until our fellow Americans prove us wrong. I'm counting on their record.

I know what I write is upsetting. I know the mentality of tv nation makes no sense. My advice is to be thankful for your opposable thumbs, make another donation to Obama, and let it go. Being a ball of twisted nerves for the next two months as you worry about whether your country will learn from its mistakes is self-flagellating. It won't. Falling education standards and decreased access to higher education don't create a nation of smarter people. In an effort to make my case, help reorient you to the America you live in, and spare you the stress of misplaced hope, please consider the following a public service reminder about who it is that outnumbers you:

This data is from Gallup and other legitimate polls, all taken between 1995 and 2001. I’m going to take a leap of faith and guess that the numbers haven’t changed significantly since then:

42% of Americans cannot locate Japan on a map.

15% of Americans cannot locate the United States on a map.

40% of American adults do not know that Germany was our enemy in World War II.

58% of American high school seniors cannot understand a newspaper editorial in any newspaper.

A US Department of Education survey in 1995 revealed that 50% of students were unaware of the cold war and 60% were unaware of how the United States came into existence.

Nearly 70% of Americans believe in the existence of angels, 50% believe in the existence of UFOs and space aliens, and 30% think they have had contact with the dead.

About 1 in 4 Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

22% of Americans can name all five Simpson family members, but only 1 in 1,000 people can name all five First Amendment freedoms.

In 1986, only 30% knew that Roe v. Wade was the Supreme Court decision that ruled abortion legal more than a decade earlier.

Only 25% of Americans know the length of term for a US Senator.

Only 20% of Americans know how many Senators are in congress.

Only 40% of Americans can correctly identify and name the three branches of government.

Only 49% of Americans know which country dropped the nuclear bomb. Let me say it another way. 51% of AMERICANS don’t know that their own country dropped a fucking nuclear fucking weapon on another country.

30% of Americans don’t know what the holocaust was.

Only 35% know that Congress can override a presidential veto.

49% of Americans think the president can suspend the Constitution.

60% of Americans believe that he can appoint judges to the federal courts without the approval of the Senate.

45% of Americans believe that revolutionary speech is punishable under the Constitution.

From Mother Jones:

“In earlier generations—in the 1950s, for example—young people read newspapers and digested the news at rates similar to those of the general population. Nothing indicates that the current generation of young people will suddenly begin following the news when they turn 35 or 40. Indeed, half a century of studies suggest that most people who do not pick up the news habit in their twenties probably never will.”

“In another study of 17 year olds, only 4% could read a bus schedule, and only 12% could arrange six common fractions in order of size.”

“U.S. Census data indicate that voters aged 18 to 24 turn out in low numbers. In 1972, when 18 year olds got the vote, 52% cast a ballot. In subsequent years, far fewer voted: in 1988, 40%; in 1992, 50%; in 1996, 35%; in 2000, 36%. In 2004, despite the most intense get-out-the-vote effort ever focused on young people, just 47% took the time to cast a ballot.”

From noted intellectual Morris Berman’s book “The Twilight of American Culture”:

“Ignorance of the most elementary scientific facts on the part of American adults is nothing less than breathtaking…..56% of those polled said that electrons were larger than atoms; 63% stated that the earliest human beings lived at the same time as the dinosaurs; 53% said that the earth revolves around the sun in either a day or a month….91% were unable to state what a molecule was. A random telephone survey of more than 2,000 adults by Northern Illinois University revealed that 21% believed that the sun revolved around the earth, with an additional 7% saying that they did not know which revolved around which.”

“Of the 158 countries in the United Nations, the US ranks forty-ninth in literacy. Roughly 60% of the adult population has never read a book of any kind, and only 6% reads as much as one book a year, where book is defined to include harlequin romances and self-help manuals. Something like 120 million adults are illiterate or read at no better than a fifth-grade level. Among readers age 21-35, 67% regularly read a daily newspaper in 1965, as compared with 31% in 1998.”

“In 1998 the Massachusetts Board of Education instituted a literacy test for teachers, pegged at the level of an exam for a high school equivalency diploma. Of the eighteen hundred prospective teachers who took it, 59% failed. In response to this, the interim commissioner of education, one Frank Haydu III, announced that the passing grade would be lowered.”