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Summary
Summary
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER *
Andy Borowitz, "one of the funniest people in America" (CBS Sunday Morning ), brilliantly "chronicles our embrace of anti-intellectualism" (Walter Isaacson) in American politics, from Ronald Reagan to Dan Quayle, from George W. Bush to Sarah Palin, to its apotheosis in Donald J. Trump.
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.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
New Yorker columnist Borowitz (editor, The 50 Funniest American Writers) delivers a quip-filled look at U.S. politicians who "turned ignorance from a liability into a virtue." Claiming that "not so long ago, it was less than ideal for an American politician to seem like a dumbass," Borowitz blames Ronald Reagan for showing, in the words of humorist Molly Ivins, "that ignorance is no handicap to the presidency." (As governor of California, Reagan once claimed that plants and trees produce more air pollution than chimneys and cars.) But at least Reagan could memorize a script; Dan Quayle, on the other hand, "spewed nonsense worthy of Lewis Carroll on opium." Borowitz also skewers Sarah Palin, who allegedly did not know that Africa was a continent. But the book's biggest target is Donald Trump, who once suggested that Frederick Douglass was still alive and that American patriots "took over the airports" during the Revolutionary War. Though Borowitz's inability to resist a pun can grow tiresome, he sheds light on the cultural and economic trends that gave intellectualism a bad name and identifies the political operatives--including Roger Stone and Bill Kristol--who facilitated the rise of ignorance. Fans of The Borowitz Report will gobble this up. (Sept.)
Kirkus Review
A celebrated political satirist eviscerates know-nothing politicians, mostly Republicans. Over the past 50 years, the Republican Party has continuously nominated incurious, poorly read, and laughably unprepared candidates for public office, with puppet masters in the wings to minimize the damage. Such is the all-too-convincing premise of Borowitz's exhaustively detailed, devastatingly funny takedown of a veritable Mount Rushmore of incompetents: "People sometimes call our nation 'the American experiment.' Recently, though, we've been lab rats in another, perverse American experiment, seemingly designed to answer this question: Who's the most ignorant person the United States is willing to elect?" If this parade of intellectual lightweights began its "Age of Ignorance" with Ronald Reagan, writes the author, it reached its nadir with Donald Trump. In the hallowed tradition of Will Rogers, Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, Ambrose Bierce, and other cleareyed satirists, Borowitz skewers all manner of chronically befuddled, willfully ignorant dolts: Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene (a "prolific QAnon loudmouth"), Matt Gaetz (the "ultimate specimen of Florida Man"), Lauren Boebert, and former football coach Tommy Tuberville, who once said, "There is one person that changes climate in this country and that is God." Ravaging this seemingly endless rogues' gallery of buffoonery and corruption, Borowitz marshals mind-boggling, breathtaking evidence. In pillorying Trump, he's shooting fish in a barrel, but even worse are the unprincipled "handlers" behind the scenes: Roy Cohn, Stu Spencer, Roger Ailes, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, et al. Democrats don't get a pass, but Borowitz clearly demonstrates that Republicans are unrivaled in behaving as if stupidity was a virtue. While there are countless laughs in the book, they have a rueful edge given that we are all affected by such widespread ignorance. "In this book," he writes, "I've made nothing up. All the events I'm about to describe actually happened. They're a part of American history. Unfortunately." Top-notch political satire from a practiced pen. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Award-winning satirist Borowitz (The Borowitz Report) takes on the state of U.S. politics in this astonishing and well-researched book. There is a lot to laugh at, until it becomes clear that the political realm in the United States is just as Borowitz describes. From Ronald Reagan through the Trump era, Borowitz traces the three stages of ignorance: ridicule, acceptance, and celebration (of ignorance). Borowitz focuses on the last five decades, but he's clear that earlier examples exist. Borowitz's narration of this clever book will help listeners laugh, while the content may compel some to cry. He doesn't just chronicle; he makes recommendations for reversing this trend and raising the bar that is precariously low. Real conversations, listening, and education are the key to fighting back against the age of ignorance. The optimistic author thinks this can change course if people act. VERDICT Librarians may recognize and relate to Borowitz's amusing and insightful observations. This superbly narrated book should be a part of every public library collection.--Christa Van Herreweghe
Table of Contents
| Introduction: The Three Stages of Ignorance | p. 1 |
| 1 The First Stage: Ridicule | p. 13 |
| 2 The Second Stage: Acceptance | p. 86 |
| 3 The Third Stage: Celebration | p. 177 |
| Conclusion: Democracy's Braking System | p. 233 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 243 |
| Notes | p. 245 |
| Index | p. 295 |
