Read a Damn Book, America—Before It’s Too Late
By Jack Beckett
Farmington Mercury
Alright, America. Let’s talk. In a country that’s managed to invent fast food delivery, binge-watch entire seasons in a weekend, and somehow “reinvent” the wheel with electric scooters, we can’t seem to manage one essential thing: reading for 17 minutes daily. Seventeen! That’s less time than it takes to brew a cup of coffee, yet we’re acting like it’s a Herculean effort. How did we go from Thomas Jefferson drafting the Declaration of Independence to this?
Here’s what I’m saying: our brains are turning to mush. The average American spends over five hours a day glued to screens—whether it’s Netflix, TikTok, or scrolling through X (formerly Twitter)—but we’ve collectively checked out when it comes to engaging with information that requires more than a scroll. We’re clocking in at 17 minutes a day reading anything that resembles a thought-provoking sentence (American Academy)(Mental Floss). Seventeen minutes! People spend more time waiting for their Amazon Prime orders to be delivered.
And you think this is just a personal problem? Do you think you’re only cheating yourself? Wrong. It’s not just your shrinking attention span at stake—it’s democracy itself. Don’t believe me? Let me break it down.
Why Reading Matters for Democracy
In the Enlightenment, guys like Voltaire, Locke, and Jefferson read and wrote as if their lives depended on it. Because, guess what—they did! These men understood that an informed populace was the only safeguard against tyranny. But today? Forget it. We’ve got people taking BuzzFeed quizzes about which pasta they’d be based on their Zodiac sign while skipping out on news about local elections. “Oh, I don’t have time,” they say, as they scroll Instagram for an hour. Give me a break.
Meanwhile, we’ve got people like Charlie Munger, who lived to be 99 and spent every waking moment with his nose in a book. He said it best: “In my whole life, I’ve known no wise people who didn’t read all the time—none, zero.” The man read everything and died sharp as a tack. And here we are, barely able to read past the headlines. Let me tell you, Munger would be shaking his head at us from the grave.
The Real Danger: Ignorance at the Polls
And this isn’t just about being well-read so you can impress someone at a dinner party. It’s about what happens when people stop paying attention. If you’re not reading, you’re not informed. And if you’re not informed, you’re letting someone else do your thinking for you. In a democracy, that’s a dangerous game. Because guess what happens when you don’t show up? Extremists win. They show up at primaries—the ones where the real decisions are made—while you’re too busy figuring out what snack matches your personality.
Bradley Tusk has been screaming about this for years. He’s the guy who ran campaigns, fixed political disasters, and knows the system inside and out. In his book The Fixer, he lays it out plainly: primaries are everything. By the time you get to the general election, it’s too late. The loudest, most extreme voices have already hijacked the process, and you’re left scratching your head in November wondering why the choices suck (The Library of Congress)(Mental Floss).
Let’s be clear here: this is how democracies fail. Look at history. What did dictators like Hitler and Stalin do first? They controlled information. They made sure people weren’t reading, thinking, or challenging the status quo. And right now? We’re doing it to ourselves. We’re giving away our control because we’d rather scroll through TikTok than read about how our taxes are being spent. It’s embarrassing.
The Solution? Read. And Vote.
What’s the solution? It’s painfully simple: READ. Pick up a book, read an article, and try to use your brain for longer than 30 seconds at a time. And once you’ve done that, here’s the kicker—show up and vote. Not just in the general election, where your options are already cooked. Vote in the primaries, where the real decisions are made.
If you’re sitting there telling me you don’t have time to vote, I’m going to lose it. In Farmington, you’ve got 12 days of early voting. Twelve! You can vote on a Saturday, a Sunday, hell, you can even vote on Halloween. That’s right—you can show up dressed as a zombie, drop your ballot, and still make it home in time to watch a horror movie marathon. What’s your excuse?
Here’s the schedule:
- October 21 – October 28: 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- October 29: 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM
- October 31 (yes, on Halloween): 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM
- November 1 – November 3: 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
And if you’re too lazy to even do that, request an absentee ballot. Head over to the Town Clerk’s Absentee Ballots page and make it happen. If you’ve got time to stream an entire season of some reality show in a weekend, you’ve got time to fill out a ballot.
Bottom Line: Stop Making Excuses
So here’s the deal: start reading, start voting, and stop pretending ignorance is an option. Because if we keep this up, one day we’re going to wake up in a world we don’t recognize, ruled by people we never thought would have a shot in hell. And it’ll be on us.
Special Thanks to Farmington Storage, where your unread books can be stored in museum-quality air—because let’s face it, your brain might be rotting, but at least your books don’t have to. Store them with Farmington Storage, and maybe one day, you’ll crack one open.
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