Robert Paige

“A politician discussing his religion now refers to himself as a “person of faith,” which tells you more about the politician’s balls than it does about his soul. He doesn’t have enough of the former to call himself “religious,” because that leads to the question of which religion and why he chooses to follow it and not one of the dozens of others, or none of them at all. Such questions cause actual thought to break out, something that all modern politicians endeavor to avoid.”
― Charles P. Pierce, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

“Nevertheless, four years later, at the end of August 2004, a Zogby poll discovered the critical fact that 57 percent of the undecided voters in that year's election would rather have a beer with George Bush than with John Kerry.
The question was odd enough on its face, but a nation to which it would matter is odder still. Be honest. Consider all the people with whom you've tossed back a beer. How many of them would you trust with nuclear launch codes?”
― Charles P. Pierce, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

“Idiot America is a strange, disordered place. Everything is on the wrong shelves. The truth of something is defined by how many people will attest to it, and facts are defined by those people’s fervency. Fiction and nonfiction are defined by how well they sell. The best sellers are on one shelf, cheek by jowl, whether what’s contained in them is true or not. People wander blindly, following the Gut into dark corners and aisles that lead nowhere, confusing possibilities with threats, jumping at shadows, stumbling around. They trip over piles of fiction left strewn around the floor of the nonfiction aisles. They fall down. They land on other people, and those other people can get hurt.”
― Charles P. Pierce, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

“In the new media age, everybody is a historian, or a scientist, or a preacher, or a sage. And if everyone is an expert, then nobody is, and the worst thing you can be in a society where everybody is an expert is, well, an actual expert.”
― Charles P. Pierce, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free