In Ancient Greece, the word “idiot” referred to an individual who took no interest in public affairs, in the life of the polis. America has long been populated by idiots, folks who not only are disengaged from politics but are ignorant about it as well. The Center for American Progress noted in 2018 that “civic knowledge and public engagement is at an all-time low.” 

There’s the old joke about the student who was asked, “What’s worse, ignorance or apathy?” and answered, “I don’t know, and I don’t care!” 

Given how ill-informed Americans are about their government, perhaps it is just as well that relatively few participate in elections and public life. However, if the 2020 election is any indication of where we are heading, we could be experiencing the worst combination of growing participation alongside growing ignorance. 

Let us look first at political participation. The American electorate is notoriously apathetic compared with the electorates in other democracies in Europe and elsewhere. 

For example, in a country such as Belgium, turnout levels in national elections typically reach as high as 90% of eligible voters. In contrast, in recent decades, turnout in American presidential elections has been 50 to 60%. 

Even the close Bush-Gore 2000 race managed to attract only 50%, while the 1996 Clinton-Dole contest saw 40%, the lowest turnout since 1924. More people watched the “Who Shot J.R?” episode of “Dallas” and the final episode of “Seinfeld“ than voted for the president of the United States. 

However, although final figures are not yet in, voting turnout in this year’s election is expected to break a 60-year-old record set in 1960, when 60% of eligible voters cast ballots. According to some estimates, the 2020 turnout will be the highest since 1900, when 73.7% of eligible voters turned out. 

We are also seeing political participation growing in terms of more street protests. The U.S. Crisis Monitor —  a joint project of Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project — reports that “demonstrations surged to new levels in 2020,” with more than 80% related to Black Lives Matter or the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although some might find growing political participation a sign of progress, there is reason to be concerned if those participating are increasingly ignorant of their political system, not to mention the larger world around them. Civic involvement is great, but not so much if it is misinformed. 

The liberal Center for American Progress has reported that only a quarter of Americans can name all three branches of government, a significant decline from previous years. Fewer than a third can name their representative in Congress or their U.S. senators, and barely half even know they have two senators. More than half cannot name a single U.S. Supreme Court justice. Only one in three Americans can pass the U.S. citizenship test. 

The problem is worsening as civics education in our schools is increasingly inviting criticism. In the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics exam, only 25% of eighth-graders were “proficient,” with achievement scores stagnating since 1998. Thanks to the promotion of the highly misleading New York Times “1619 Project” in K-12, kids no longer can be sure whether 1776, as opposed to 1619, marked the founding of the United States.

Higher education is only adding to the problem. A 2016 report from the nonprofit American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), which supports liberal arts education, found that only 18% of four-year colleges require a foundational course in U.S. history or government, and 70% of the nation’s top colleges do not require even history majors to take a course in U.S. history, although many do require them to take a course in African or Middle Eastern or some other history that satisfies a “diversity” requirement.

Not surprisingly, ACTA found abysmal ignorance on the part of recent college graduates. To cite a few examples from annual surveys:

Nearly half of college graduates could not identify correctly the term lengths of U.S. senators and representatives.

One third were unaware that FDR was associated with the New Deal.

Fewer than 20% could define the Emancipation Proclamation, and more than a third could not place the American Civil War in its correct 20-year time frame.

Among the “Top 50” universities, only 22% knew that the source of the phrase “government of the people, by the people and for the people” was Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. 

In “Academically Adrift,” Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa surveyed 3,000 students across dozens of campuses in the United States and found that almost half of the students demonstrated “no significant gains in learning” after two years of college, referring not just to lack of factual knowledge but, more importantly, the failure “to develop higher-order cognitive skills.” Possibly, this was because today’s students spend 50% less time studying than previous generations.  

Similarly, in “The Case Against Education,” Bryan Caplan documents considerable research showing that college students forget or never learn, and are unable to utilize, most course material they encounter in college.

A Nov. 4 CNN headline read: “College-Educated Voters Flock to Biden in Several Battleground States.” Sadly, given the present state of college education, there is little reason to think Biden voters are necessarily all that better informed and sophisticated than Trump voters these days. 

One of my heroes is E.D. Hirsch, author of “Cultural Literacy”  and “The Schools We Need.” (I had the privilege a few years ago of having dinner and serving on a panel with him at an education conference at the Brookings Institution.) One of the most prominent education theorists in the country, Hirsch is still writing at 92 years of age. His latest book, “How to Educate a Citizen: The Power of Shared Knowledge To Unify a Nation,”  speaks to the problem of civic know-nothingism that afflicts Americans, particularly our youth. Hirsch writes: 

“I went to elementary school in the early 1930s. The curriculum I received was nation-centered, not child-centered. We learned U.S. history. We honored American founders. We learned by heart the preambles to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We learned about the Civil War. We memorized not only the Pledge of Allegiance … but also the Gettysburg Address.”

It is healthy that our body politic is witnessing an increased fervor for political participation. It would be even healthier if such participation were informed by both greater civic literacy as well as an understanding of the shared ideals the United States has been pursuing for over two centuries, however much we remain a work in progress. 

J. Martin Rochester, Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, is the author of 10 books on international and American politics.