Yes World, American Voters Are Really Dumb

By James Donahue

The front page of the Daily Mirror in London announced the re-election of George W. Bush with the question: “How Can 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb?”

Is it true? Just how intelligent are Americans?

Essays and books have been written in recent years concerning what many educators and intellectuals believe has been a deliberate “dumbing down of America,” but until the election, and a published study of average intelligence of Americans by state, I think I didn’t really believe the problem was as severe as it is.

There recently appeared a chart that indicated an average intelligence quote per state that claims the states with people of lower average IQ chose Bush. The states with higher average IQs leaned toward Kerry. It claimed that the average IQ in America is 98, far lower than I realized.

Was the data on the chart accurate?

From IQ data taken from a book by university professors Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen called “IQ and the Wealth of Nations” and a website that showed IQ data calculated from state SAT and ACT scores, there is an indication that this, indeed, is the average level of intellect in the US.

The latter chart offered a breakdown that correlated IQs and incomes in each state, but someone took the trouble since the election to tag on how the state voted for the two presidential candidates. Thus we have a chart with a relatively correct assessment of average intellect of the voters by each state.

It seems that the smartest people in the nation live in New Hampshire, where they score at 104, and Oregon, Massachusetts and Wisconsin, where they test average at 103. All four states, by the way, supported Kerry.

The lowest IQ scores were rated at 94 in both Mississippi and South Carolina. These states both went for Bush.

Of these, 17 of the 35 states averaging an IQ of 100 or more voted for Kerry. Three of the 16 states on the bottom of the rung voted for Kerry. The rest of them swung to Bush with flags waving from the windows and bumpers of their cars.

Thus the conclusion can be reached that states where people averaged a higher intelligence level, indeed, supported Kerry.

According to international IQ charts, the United States rates 18 behind other nations in average intellectual levels. At the top is Hong Kong at 107; South Korea, 106; Japan, 105; Taiwan and Singapore, 104; Austria, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands, 102; Sweden and Switzerland at 101; Belgium, China, New Zealand and the United Kingdom at 100; Hungary, Poland and Spain at 99.

According to the Mensa IQ group, these numbers are not bad, although they could be much better, especially in the United States where educational opportunities have been touted as among the best, and our universities have excelled for years.

People in the IQ range of 90 to 110 are considered good learners and hands-on people well adapted for public service jobs. They make good secretaries, bank tellers, police officers, machinists and sales clerks. That just about describes the American people today. Where are the artists, the writers, the great mathematicians, inventors? We are not producing them any more.

Remember that these numbers are “average,” which means that some are much lower, while others are higher. People at 70 to 80 IQ are thought of as slow, simple-minded individuals that need supervision just to function. Those at 120 and above are the creative ones, the leaders.

The bottom line to all of this is that Americans are falling behind. Either we are producing dumber people, or something has gone very wrong with our education system. The masses are turning out to be bungling idiots, content on their menial 9-5 job, their nightly ration of beer and Saturday afternoon football. They will raise the flag and go to war when the leaders tell them to, and they won’t question the order.

The big business interests have got people right where they want them. They have turned Americans into a nation of slaves, content to work for minimum wages with no benefits so the wealthy landowners get even richer.

The people who voted for Bush are most likely the low wage earners, with sons and daughters off fighting an unjust war, struggling to make ends meet, and desperate for health benefits promised but that they will never have again.

What is worse, they lack the intelligence to understand their plight.

*Income per person in 2003 is from http://www.bea.doc.gov