Finding American voters wanting?

ATTENTION DEFICIT DEMOCRACY

By James Bovard

Palgrave Macmillan,

$26.95, 304 pages

REVIEWED BY A.G. GANCARSKI

In “Attention Deficit Democracy,” widely published libertarian journalist James Bovard revisits what, for him, is familiar territory. He considers the American people as voters, and finds them wanting — ill-educated and incapable of grasping the realities that face them, specifically the erosion of their civil liberties.

He considers the executive branch likewise, and finds it to be primarily concerned with the expansion of its own powers. Mr. Bovard argues here that our elections are predicated on scare tactics and fear mongering, and that the spirit and letter of democracy have both been subverted in a concerted, bipartisan effort to establish what the author calls an “elective dictatorship.”

Unambiguously written, the book will definitely appeal to those who agree with Mr. Bovard’s conclusions. Other readers will find the “Attention Deficit Democracy” wanting.

The book veers off course for this reviewer early on, as Mr. Bovard’s repeated insistence on describing the United States as a “democracy” is an oversimplification that borders on being a falsehood. As is commonly known, the United States is not a simple democracy, but a republic, rooted in the Constitution, with a democratic process.

Mr. Bovard, as is the habit of many who share his leanings, invokes the “Founding fathers” in an attempt to vindicate his argument. But what Mr. Bovard leaves out is that these Founding fathers were suspicious of untrammelled democracy itself.

As James Madison wrote in “Federalist #10,” “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.”

In a different context, it might not matter that Mr. Bovard is playing fast and loose with the word “democracy” — it’s the kind of thing that political writers on the make do all the time. But in his current book, the author insists upon painting every political actor and action he doesn’t like as an assault on the American way of life. The bulk of his antipathy, naturally, is for the current president, who Mr. Bovard spends most of the book depicting as a cross between Vladimir Putin and Benito Mussolini.

Air-America friendly assertions (“On November 13, 2001, Bush announced that he had the right to nullify all rights”) abound here, as Mr. Bovard argues that the Administration’s stock-in-trade is “exploiting public dread,” which is easy, since “most Americans have long been political lightweights”, and therefore are ready prey for “weapons of mass deception.”

Such overheated and played-out rhetoric can animate an essay or a magazine article, but it can’t help but grate over the long haul. But for a bombthrower like Mr. Bovard, a grating tone is an occupational hazard.

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