Perhaps it is just me, but the the U.S. political scene has now seemed to have reached a near-untenable state. The most influential nation in the world, with unprecedented reach and power, is literally within months of potentially nominating Donald Trump to be its next President. Our collective, international strength as a country is matched only by our unstoppable desire to look as ridiculous to the rest of the world as possible.
Enter The Age of American Unreason, and its methodical and damning walk through U.S. History that describes a slow, steady decline in both our political system and the general public's ability to act as its counterweight. We have Donald Trump (and now Sarah Palin, sweet jesus) splashed on the front pages of newspapers and political blogs not because it is some unfortunate byproduct of our laissez-faire system of government, but because the unabated dumbing down of American citizenry has driven it there. Anti-intellecutalism driven by fringe religiosity, junk science imbued with credibility by irresponsible mass media outlets, and the abandonment of literary and intellectual endeavors in favor of cat videos on the internet. One of many telling statistics: in 2006, 9 out of 10 Americans couldn't find Afghanistan on map, even though hundreds of American soldiers were dying there every year after the U.S. invasion and occupation.