"Profiles in Ignorance: How America's politicians got dumb and dumber," by Andy Borowitz

[Timeflyer]

If you're worried that things seem crazier now than anytime before, satirist Andy Borowitz agrees, and provides a record of the truly stupid, unbelievable dim-witted, completely ridiculous stuff American politicians have said and done since about the 1960s, when R. Reagan ushered in "moronic in America". This book is snicker-out-loud funny. And, as Borowitz writes "...if someday alien scientists are picking through the rubble of our fallen civilization and happen upon a tattered copy of this book, maybe it'll help them piece together what went wrong."

In the first stage, "Ridicule", dumb politicians had to pretend to be smart. In the second stage, Acceptance, dumb politicians felt free to seem dumb. We have the misfortune of living in the Third Stage of Ignorance--Celebration. After recounting the years of US political descent into mostly GOP idiocracy, Borowitz reminds us that to save our democracy we to get involved locally, and avoid "political hobbyism." Donating to campaigns is important, but to save our democracy in the "Age of Ignorance" we need to stay in the fight and do the hard work, like on the ground deep canvassing, and flooding the zone with votes.

[erronis]

1. Might be useful to provide a link to the book.

I thought you were just quoting from a New Yorker piece. This is a book published in 2022

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Profiles-in-Ignorance/Andy-Borowitz/9781668003886

Andy Borowitz has been called a “Swiftian satirist” (The Wall Street Journal) and “one of the country’s finest satirists” (The New York Times). Millions of fans and New Yorker readers enjoy his satirical news column “The Borowitz Report.” Now, in Profiles in Ignorance, he delivers “a wittily alarming polemic that tracks the evolution of American politics from grounds for gravitas to festival of idiocy” (The New York Times).

Borowitz argues that over the past fifty years, American politicians have grown increasingly allergic to knowledge, and mass media have encouraged the election of ignoramuses by elevating candidates who are better at performing than thinking. Starting with Ronald Reagan’s first campaign for governor of California in 1966 and culminating with the election of Donald J. Trump to the White House, Borowitz shows how, during the age of twenty-four-hour news and social media, the US has elected politicians to positions of great power whose lack of the most basic information is terrifying. In addition to Reagan, Quayle, Bush, Palin, and Trump, Borowitz covers a host of congresspersons, senators, and governors who have helped lower the bar over the past five decades.

Profiles in Ignorance aims to make us both laugh and cry: laugh at the idiotic antics of these public figures, and cry at the cataclysms these icons of ignorance have caused. But most importantly, the book delivers a call to action and a cause for optimism: History doesn’t move in a straight line, and we can change course if we act now.

[Timeflyer]

2. Thanks. More booky than techy, didn't think of link. Yes, book, good, read it.