Informed electorate? You decide

[question everything]

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

There is no polite way to phrase this: When it comes to politics, the average person is an idiot.
By Paul Campos

MSNBC has just conducted a poll in which it asked people if they thought opinion polls accurately reflected actual opinions. The network informs us that 88 percent of those polled answered "no."

This sounds like a surreal joke, but then stories about contemporary politics often do. There is no polite way to phrase this: When it comes to politics, the average person is an idiot. Depressing evidence for this claim can be found in a recent New Yorker essay by Louis Menand, which surveys the political-science literature regarding why people vote the way they do.

The conclusions from this literature include:

•No more than 10 percent of the population can be said to have a coherent political belief system, using even a loose definition of that term. Most people's political beliefs, to the extent they have any at all, suffer from a lack of what political scientists call "constraint" -- i.e., little or no logical connection exists between the positions they hold. For example, a large proportion of voters see no contradiction between being in favor of both lower taxes and increased government services.

•Perhaps a quarter of all voters vote on the basis of factors that have no "issue content" whatever. They vote for candidates who seem likable, or optimistic, or for those whose campaign posters are particularly eye-catching. According to Princeton political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, millions of voters in the 2000 presidential election based their votes on what the weather had been like lately.

More..


Find this article at:
http://www.dailybreeze.com/opinion/1039981.html

Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado, wrote this column for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail address is [e-mail].

[Goldmund]

1. The genius of propaganda

[xray s]

2. Republicans understand this

That is why they keep their message very simple and appeal to fear, greed and hate.

It also points to the fact that the biggest challenge to Kerry is educating the voters. That is a tall task.

[kskiska]

3. This is true

My long-deceased grandmother, Nanny, absolutely loved Ike because he "had such a nice smile."

[freesqueeze]

4. How's the Moron Vote Looking

My question is which of these two Prez candidates is most likely to get the moron vote?

[dweller]

5. well, since you've asked

answered.
dp

[PATRICK]

6. Personally, I think this too is a stupid judgment

One can also be surprised how people do easily get the gist of difficult issues, show surprisingly they have been paying attention while having an alarming skew of prioritizing of that knowledge. A commonality of spirit or awareness exists in the human race as a whole flowing with the times, more united than ever by swift communication and the blunting of propaganda by variety and dissidence. That too is frustratingly passive or unidirected- but those most able to direct pride themselves on pushing the boiling point hairtriggers.

As individuals in wide swaths of priorities or knowledge we are are all more or less unable to cope with the crises of survival. As collectivities we behave as one big example of that universal bumpkin. Goodhearted, easy to trick or confuse, stubbornly steadfast in an innocent peaceful pursuit of a modest Utopia.

This of course, often repeated and demonstrated, misdirects us(us "smarter" people!) away from the failure of most schooling and all media to adequately lead the people to knowledge and assist in sane prioritization of responses especially in times of crises. Otherwise we sink into brutalizing fear and violence a downward spiral where we lose ourselves and any pathetic goals that are beside the point of the real universe. "Smart" people just spin their wheels faster in the mud and make places like Vietnam even worse and more complex.

Not so strange then that when the entire human race gets on the right track about peace, Bush and global justice, these arbiters of media wisdom are AWOL.