rick shenkman waited to hear? guest: the cholerae is right that the american people do not know a lot of fat -- the caller is right here that the american people do not know a lot of facts. we have 100now that u.s. senators. the majority of the american people do not know that we have .hree branches of government a lot of them believe on the eve of the iraq war that saddam hussein was behind 9/11. that the reason we were invading iraq was to take revenge for him having destroyed the world trade center and attacking the pentagon. are a low information voter, which is unfortunately the majority of the american voters low information are more easily manipulated because they do not know enough. if a politician is articulate, enthusiastic, can make a case and connect with you as one person to another person looking through a tv camera -- if i'm excited, passionate, and you are impressed with my passionate enthusiasm, and what i'm saying makes sense, you do not have the toependent basis evaluate my argument and informat

rick shenkman, any reaction? wants to payebody to send me around the country and talk to audiences, i am all in favor of it. run thee a day job and history news network website where historians are putting the news into historical perspective , but i can take some time out to go on the road. host: helen in winthrop, maine, democrat. please go ahead with your question or comment. caller: good morning. i was struck by a comment that author michelle goldberg made the other day on chris hayes's show about policy currents and how generally speaking, the population is really a verse two people who are blatantly policy occurred. it is magnified when the power seeker is a woman. some ofhis to explain the antipathy people have toward candidate clinton, i'm wondering if your book addresses the whole issue of gender and how this plays into the current political field. and also, the role of religion, where we know that many subjugation ofe women has been part and parcel of our history. i hope you would care to address those.

rick shenkman, what did you hear? >> guest: the caller is right that the american people don't know a lot of facts about what our government functions. a majority don't know with 100 u.s. senators. even though that's a nice the number and is easy to remember. a majority don't know that we have three branches of government. a majority of the american people believe on the eve of the iraq war that saddam hussein was behind the 9/11 attack and that the reason we were going to invade iraq was to take revenge for him having destroyed the world trade center and attacking the pentagon. when you are what's called a low information voter, which is unfortunately true of the majority of the american people, low information voters are more easily manipulated by politicians because they don't know enough. so politicians can stand up and if he is articulate and he is enthusiastic and he can make a case and connect with you as one person to another person looking for a tv came as i'm doing right now, if i'm excited and a passionate

rick shenkman is

rick shenkman waited to hear? guest: the cholerae is right that the american people do not know a lot of fat -- the caller is right here that the american people do not know a lot of facts. we have 100now that u.s. senators. the majority of the american people do not know that we have .hree branches of government a lot of them believe on the eve of the iraq war that saddam hussein was behind 9/11. that the reason we were invading iraq was to take revenge for him having destroyed the world trade center and attacking the pentagon. are a low information voter, which is unfortunately the majority of the american voters low information are more easily manipulated because they do not know enough. if a politician is articulate, enthusiastic, can make a case and connect with you as one person to another person looking through a tv camera -- if i'm excited, passionate, and you are impressed with my passionate enthusiasm, and what i'm saying makes sense, you do not have the toependent basis evaluate my argument and informat

the next call for rick shenkman comes from suzanne on the independent line. go ahead, suzanne. caller: hey, rick. what you just said about the politicians'advisors telling them how to go ahead and say of reahey are supposed to instead of really answering the question. that sort of reminds me of we are not really in the stone age. everybody is in the reality tv age. so what the advisors are telling him to do is help to get the very best response out of the viewers, and instead of thinking about how the politicians are what the politicians are saying on these different programs, we are taken to the reality tv world where everybody has we don't care about real stuff we just care about what we think is happening. so, i don't think the stone age is here. i think we've progressed a lot from the stone age because we are at this stage we can sit there with a completely empty mind. >> host: let's get a response. >> guest: we are not living in the stone age, that's the problem, but we have a stone age brain on our shoulders and it's not good at helping us understand the problems that we a