• Idiot America

  • How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free
  • By: Charles P. Pierce
  • Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
  • Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (662 ratings)

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Idiot America  By  cover art

Idiot America

By: Charles P. Pierce
Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
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Publisher's summary

The culture wars are over and the idiots have won. This is a veteran journalist’s caustically funny, righteously angry lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States.

The three Great Premises of Idiot America: · Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units; anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough; "fact" is that which enough people believe. And "truth" is determined by how fervently they believe it.

Charles Pierce has led a career-long quest to separate the smart from the pap, and now it’s time to try and salvage the Land of the Enlightened, buried somewhere in this new Home of the Uninformed. With his razor-sharp wit and erudite reasoning, Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States and how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate.

With Idiot America, Pierce’s thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that, somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated.

©2009 Charles P. Pierce (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“A raucous rant against the armies of the right…. Pierce is at his scathing, insightful best.” ( Boston Globe)

What listeners say about Idiot America

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    4 out of 5 stars

You Get What You Paid For

The title of this book makes it so obvious what you are buying that I can't believe people actually take the time to write reviews bashing it. When I bought this book, I knew I was buying a trashy book that was going to smear Conservatives. That's what I wanted, that's what I paid for, and that's exactly what I got. So, please, if you are a sensative conservative reader, prone to tantrums and an undeserved sense of victimization, then you really should NOT be buying this book (unless of course your only goal is to buy the book cheap so you can not read it, but still bash it in the comments section).

The Book is a wonderful collection of silliness. Numerous examples of how the Right has attacked everything good and educated in this world, dumbed it down, twisted it into an unrecognizable mass of bitterness and hatred, and then sold it as their own product to Limbaugh's acolytes. From the Creation Museum (terrifying to be sure) to the Conservative take-over of Talk Radio, the book is an fountain of interesting factoids and historical perspective coupled with a very sarcastic wit. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was my traveling companion as I was traveling through Utah, and I would highly recommend this to any Liberal/Progressive reader looking for a giggle inbetween conservative-bashing.

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123 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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There Is Now Scientific Evidence for...

Indeed we are becoming a country of idiots and this book points out many of the really stupid things people in this country believe.

I personally do not care if people believe that the earth is 6,000 years old. Everyone, myself included, has at least one totally irrational belief in their baggage.

My objection to the beliefs of others is inflamed when nutty beliefs are taught in schools or guide important political policies. No, a 6,000 year old earth is not a different point of view deserving equal time with evolution; it's nutty. I hate to see kids taught that nonsense by their parents but hey, it's a free country. And that, sadly, is the point.

So, like me, you'll read this to reinforce what you already believe. Or you will spit nails over your right to believe these nutty things and see it as yet another attack on god-fearing people.

If you're not in the nut wing, you'll get a few really good laughs and in the end, you'll feel a little sad.

Go for it. I highly recommend this book.

Chris Reich, TeachU

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I wanted to like this...

I don't disagree with the author's basic premise,.. unfortunately, this turns into a far-left 'hit piece' pretty quickly.

If you are on the far left,.. this book is for you.

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Hilarious and Insightful

Charles Pierce has given us a book citing virtually hundreds of society's foibles and foolish manifestations. It's brilliantly written, astute and very funny. Moreover, it's astute food for thought. It's well worth repeated listenings. Excellent job by Bronson Pinchot as well.
Jim Carlton

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Liked it alot!

Good book. I believe this book details the decline of America.Side note, Bronson Pinchot is an awesome narrator.

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Must Listen

This should be a must listen for every high school senior. Want to know why the media is a mess? Your answers are here. This book made me mad, bummed me out, and broadened my view.

The stupidity it points out might bring you down, but this book is important and very good.

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Politically Confused and Rural Bashing!

This is really a very hard book to follow because the listener never knows when the reader, Mr. Pinchot, is quoting in the text another author and when he is back to reading the author, Mr. Pierce. Other readers pause or use other verbal cues to indicate the end of a quote, but this reader fails us in that respect.

Additionally being from the rural South I really disliked Mr. Pierce's putdown of rural people and their lack of intelligence in one way or another throughout. Even his political views were confused--sometimes he sounded more like a rabid conservative than a person who might question dominant fairy tales like 911 the result of some men in a plane where overwhelming scientific minds of highly reputable repute have differed. It is almost like he wants us to believe he is an original thinker and not an idiot where most of his views indicate otherwise.

In his beliefs on Kennedy, he does not state whether the lone nut job is true or not to his mind, but he says if as indicated most Americans believe it is not a lone nut job, then he states, Americans should do something about it! The overwhelming power that government now has over its people and had even in the 1960s and 1970s (the shootings at Kent State being evidence of that) means that Americans can't do anything about anything government does, short of a 100% sitdown strike, which really doesn't happen at any time in history until the masses face starvation or rebellion. Being shot in the head in a strike or dying from starvation, the shot in the head is probably the best way to go. As long as government somehow manages to convince a few of the "stupid" rural people that Pierce runs on about to grow corn or potatoes, there will be enough empty calories of one sort or another to ward off stomach pains and therefore desperation.

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Great read. Humorous and spot on.

What did you love best about Idiot America?

I found Idiot America expressed thoughts and feelings I have had on my mind for a long time but could not articulate anywhere nearly as well as Mr. Pierce. His observations are astute and his style of expressing them clear and, at times, hilarious. It made me smile at the prose and sometimes want to weep at the lunicy running roughshod over our country. Bronson Pinchot was a perfect narrator for this work too.

Have you listened to any of Bronson Pinchot’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have heard a few of Bronson Pinchot's narrations and find his amazing flexability a rare treat. He can narrate both the serious and somewhat flippant, the frightning and the funny without ever seeming to have to struggle for just the right way to do it. For Idiot America he was the perfect choice.

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

A lot of history is wound up with the timeline of this book. Donnely's Ninenger, Parts of the life of the Founding Fathers as well as the behind the scenes personalities involved in our constitution are brought to light. These are kind of back story, but they are illuminating enough to pique curiosity on the subjects, many of which I had never heard of.

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A bunch of unfocused, pointless text

Be warned, this is not about the stupidity of America, but about converting you in an extreme secular, atheist. Everyone that is not that is an idiot according to the author. Even the believers in the "intelligent design" theory are dumb. For him evolution is a perfect theory that has no holes and no questions un-answered. The fact that 95% of the people believe in divinity is compared with a survey on gravity. " If 95% of us would vote that there is no gravity would that make it so?" he asks. Therefore there is no creation and you're stupid if you're not an atheist.

Next chapters go totally la-la discussing John Adams and his misdeeds but never connecting his actions with the "Idiot America" as if he forgot completely what his book was about. He makes no other point either, so you feel that after he called creationists idiots, he just had to fill the manuscript with random talk in order to finish the book.

Here my patience ran out. Life is to short to put up with this.
I cant believe he got published...

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Written in 2009 but even more true in the age of Trump

Pierce saw the downward spiral coming after Obama's election, with the rise of the Tea Party, Glen Beck and the Creation Museum. His three components of Idiot America are present everywhere today. This is a must read for any educated voter now.

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