The abundant ignorance of American voters (jawdropping stuff)

[depakid]

I've just watched two YouTube videos that should make anyone despair about the future of our republic.

This is bipartisan despair, mind you. One video is composed of interviews with Sarah Palin fans waiting in line to meet the "author" of Going Rogue at a Borders bookstore. The other video was shot on election day last year and features a group of Obama voters answering a set of political question to the best of their limited ability. See the Palin video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKKKgua7wQk">here and the Obama video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3ZLJj_q4xI">here and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

The Palin fans quickly reveal they haven't the slightest clue what policies the ex-Alaska governor would pursue if she becomes president, but they are eager to see her sitting behind the big desk in the Oval Office, nevertheless. One thing they all seem to agree on is that government spending needs to be stopped. The interviewer asks which particular spending they have in mind. "All of it," one woman emphatically replies. (Poof! There goes Medicare, the national parks and the War in Afghanistan.)

In any event, policy is not foremost in these people's minds. Fear is.

One man says America is no longer the beacon of the world. Another says partial birth abortions are sneaking back, thanks to Obama -- who, by the way, is not really an American citizen. A Christian woman says her rights to worship and speak freely are somehow being taken away. A worried fellow says Palin can't win the presidency in 2012 because Obama is giving citizenship to hordes of illegal aliens who will vote against her. He says the election may not be held, anyway. "I know there's some back room talk about martial law," he says, without specifying whose back room is filled with that particular conversation.

One man notes that Barack Obama wrote a couple of books, too, in which he laid out "exactly what he's going to do." And what would that be? "Marxism, Leninism, Socialism," the man replies with complete assurance that he is correct. The same guy later says, "If you're right, you don't have to compromise. Compromise is for people who are wrong."

While the Palinistas are filled with certainty about the misinformation they spout as fact, the Obama voters are just blissfully ignorant. The interviewer asks them to identify which party controls Congress. They all say the Republicans do. Then they almost all fail to identify Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the actual leaders of the actual majority caucuses in Congress. They don't know who Barney Frank is. They don't know who said what at various well-publicized moments in the campaign. The only bit of information they all know is that the candidate who got a new campaign wardrobe and had a pregnant teenage daughter was Sarah Palin.

Now, obviously, creators of both videos were coming from political perspectives that were the opposite of the views held by the people being interviewed, so some editing to emphasize the interviewees stupidity clearly took place. But I've seen enough man-in-the-street interviews and talked to enough voters to know that there was nothing all that misleading in either video. There is a disturbingly large number of our fellow citizens who pay very little attention to current events and, among those who claim to be paying attention, an alarming share of them think they are informing themselves when they buy into the latest paranoid fantasy that seeps in through the Internet or gets shouted in their ears by a talk radio raver.

More: http://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhorsey/archives/186517.asp

[Better Today]

1. ..."which party controls Congress..." I'd say by all appearances the Republicans do,

even though I know we have the majority. Poorly worded question and the answers given if Republican are so far accurate.

[depakid]

2. Those were my thoughts, too!

Even so, the utter lack of knowledge by these folks just blows me away (even though I've seen it among grad students).

Horsey describes the difference here:

Those Obama voters were a pitiful bunch, for sure. But their inattention to politics is not especially unique. I'll bet giving a quiz to voters of any political persuasion would lead to a similarly depressing result. More troubling were the Palin people. Confident in their ignorance, they repeated easily disprovable canards while projecting a moral rectitude that allowed for no questioning of their paranoid beliefs.

Wow.

[RKP5637]

5. As usual, America is its own worst enemy and now with a seemingly growing ignorant

population, damn proud of it, all knowing everything and generally intolerant of reasoning/questioning... IMO America has been off its trolley track for sometime now... I have no idea where we are headed, but I do have a lot of discomfort as I fear it's probably not for the best.

[wuvuj]

29. Yes....the US is a crazy and insane country...

...and those who are in nuthouses or have been labeled as "crazy" should come out into the light of day and proclaim their freedom and sanity....throw off the burden of discrimination...for they are likely to be saner by many measures than the average citizen in an insane country. :shrug:

[Tutankhamun]

3. That's true. The Republicans do control congress.

Thanks to congressional "Democrats" who are completely bought and paid for by corporations, and therefore act like Republicans. Thanks also to the spinelessness of Democrats.

[RKP5637]

6. Ditto!!! n/t

[izquierdista]

8. They do "control" Congress

And just think what they could do if they were the majority!

[snake in the grass]

17. Even if we had 80 seats in the Senate...

...the GOP wpuld still control it, as long as Reid remains majority leader.

[certainot]

22. you sound a lot like limbaugh

[BR_Parkway]

4. But all the teabaggers know who Pelosi and Frank are, they've been

a few of the hate radio targeted personalities. Reminds me of the Two Minute Hate actually

[depakid]

7. Yep- but NOT ONE that I spoke with had the slightest clue about policy

Any type of policy- all that came out of their mouths was drivel- laden with outright falsehoods and platitudes about "the constitution" and the "founding fathers."

[Laura902]

9. Sad but true

Americans are just not the brightest bunch of people in the
world.  Canadian, Europeans and Australians are more likely to
be smarter and receive a much higher quality  education than
Americans. If I could, I'd be driving North as I speak (well
type but whatever).

[Canuckistanian]

12. Welcome to DU

On Canadian TV, there was a show once called "Talking to Americans", where Americans were interviewed on their streets about "Canadian subjects".

The people were asked questions like, "Should Canada preserve our National Igloo" or "Should Canada allow videotape recorders?" And then hear the reaction of Americans.

Almost NOBODY found the questions absurd or funny. I remember one interview with then Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, where he was asked if Canada should adopt "a 24 Hour day". He said, very solemnly, that we should.

It's funny to laugh at these interviews, but when you see SO MANY in a row, you get the feeling that something is very wrong here.

[ArbustoBuster]

19. I propose "Talking to Canadians"

In which Canadians are asked questions about Denmark.

We'll even be kind to them and focus mostly on Greenland.

:D

[StreetKnowledge]

24. Try Me.

I was born in Canada, moved to the states when I was 16 (1991) and moved back last year. I suppose I could qualify in both categories.

And I might have a surprise or two for ya about Denmark. :D

[Canuckistanian]

10. Sad, but true

Experience shows us that most people's votes are based on their biases, not on objective reality. Elections are a collective gut reaction. That any good comes of it at all is the miracle of democracy. Far worse, of course, is how things work in non-democratic countries where a single lunatic or a group of violent zealots headed by a lunatic make all the decisions and hold all the power (think Zimbabwe, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, etc.). Still, it is shocking when the willful stupidity of free citizens stares you in the face.

[chill_wind]

11. Just finished watching both. You've put up a really

good article & summary depakid.

We are in so much trouble.

[Berry Cool]

13. Actually, I'm not sure what any of it proves.

Here's something I don't think occurred to any of you while trying to "explain" the "ignorance" of the Obama voters who thought the Republicans controlled Congress.

First, at the time these "ignorant" voters were polled, while Democrats held a majority in Congress, they still held fewer than 50 seats in the Senate (do we forget?). Therefore, while they had an operational majority because the two independent senators at the time caucused with the Democrats, they didn't have a "true" majority. I think the average low-information Obama voter can be forgiven for thinking the Republicans controlled Congress on Election Day 2008, because they sure acted like it--just as the Republicans and the Democrats act as if they still do today.

Second, let's be honest with ourselves here. While both these videos make good material when we want to gape in horror at those other than ourselves for being so ignorant/pat ourselves on the back for being so informed, neither represents a scientific majority of Americans. One is a bunch of people in Columbus, Ohio, lined up for an autographed copy of Palin's book--surely a sampling of the kind of people who buy it but not a scientific one by any means--and the other is, as the video itself admits, 12 people picked at random out of a line of voters someplace, people who said they voted for Obama.

Are their ignorance and "logic" startling and scary? Yeah. Are there probably lots more Americans like them who are also supporters of Obama and Palin? Yeah. And that's scary. But it tells us nothing new. All it does is tell us something we should have figured out long ago: A lot of people (not JUST Americans, either) are lazy, uninformed, don't care about politics or government, and when they do vote or when they do like a politician, they tend to like that person because that person clicks with something in their own personality, and for no other reason. They then form what they call "political beliefs" around their admiration of this cult-of-personality figure. Only politicians with zero personal charisma don't attract such followers. Duh.

Political strategists know this. That's why they welcome any potential voter, for reasons stupid or dumb, so long as he or she votes and does it for their candidate. These videos don't prove how stupid the "average American" is, and they don't prove that Palin followers are dumber, or that Obama followers are dumber, or more of whose followers voted for their ticket for dumb reasons vs. informed ones. They just prove what we should all already know: There are a lot of ignorant people out there who get fired up about a politician for ignorant reasons, whether we like it or not.

Now. What can we do about it? Short of a mass forced political education for all these people (we do have one, called "public schooling," but a lot of them appear to have been asleep those years), I don't see what we do. The ignorant we will always have with us. You can try to educate them one on one when you find them, but that's about it. The other alternative is saying "I don't care why they vote for the person I think they should vote for, so long as they do."

One thing that we have to face, though, is that mere education will not cause the formerly ignorant to all suddenly agree with us politically or on a given candidate. In short, if we think ignorance is the only reason for political differences--i.e., those people on the other side are all dumb and we're all smart--then we are fools.

[depakid]

14. There is a qualitative difference with Republicans though

Most (actually damn near all) who I've spoken with over the past 5-6 years or so insist in believing (and repeating) outright falsehoods. You can give them facts- from credible sources that disprove their erroneous beliefs you can point out glaring holes in their reasoning in the nicest way- and yet they persist in believing even the most preposterous things.

Indeed there's peer reviewed research showing that the more facts or evidence that's adduced- the stronger certain types of people cling to falsehoods- and man, can they stretch the rationalizations.

I have to say, that's something that I haven't seen much of abroad, though I suppose the phenomena exists in other nations. Seems like its MUCH more prevalent (and actively reinforced in 21st Century America.

And that- more than anything else, is disturbing.

[chill_wind]

16. This quote in the comments section jumped out at me

especially:

"While plain old ignorance is unsettling, zealous ignorance is truly frightening."

[depakid]

18. Indeed

Hearkens to Goethe:

"Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action."

[chill_wind]

15. Yikes. A lot of projecting onto me here upon my one single sentence.

Especially this part:

"Second, let's be honest with ourselves here. While both these videos make good material when we want to gape in horror at those other than ourselves for being so ignorant/pat ourselves on the back for being so informed (...)"

I can only speak for me: it isn't smugness at all that I feel. It is a certain distinct feeling of depression. But, having just come out of 8 years of Bush's America which is all too still alive and well all around me-- and maybe reading too much Joe Bageant over these years for my own good-- not a new one.

Though I wouldn't disagree with most else of what you said. Most of all, I would completely agree that elitist attitudes will not solve the problem.

[Alcibiades]

20. Political scientists have known this for a long, long time

The truth of the ignorance of the US electorate is an empirical fact that has been long established in political science, least since Phillip Converse's 1964 "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics." There's a whole body of work on why it is that voters are ignorant, and more ignorant in the US than elsewhere.

Of course, political scientists don't practice politics, we study it, and seldom bother any more to explain the increasingly esoteric and arcane findings of our research to anyone other than other political scientists, partly because we know that the folks who might be interested wouldn't understand, and the folks who might understand would only be depressed.

[Turborama]

21. That second video lost me at "the most informed Obama voters we could find" (26 seconds in)

"some editing to emphasize the interviewees stupidity clearly took place." That's an understatement with regards to the second video.

The 1st videographer just went to a Palin book signing, filmed the people who were there and let them bury themselves in their own idiocy.

The second video makes a claim that they made an effort to try and find the most informed Obama voters, obviously that cannot be true. Clearly they used the most uninformed Obama voters they could find and left out anyone who knew the correct answers to the questions. It's a false equivalence. Even uninformed voters have a right to vote, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_(person)">idiots don't.

[certainot]

23. coordinated UNCONTESTED repetition

from 1000 radio stations makes a big difference- talk radio ravers is right.

but so much evaluation of the dem party is done in a talk radio vacuum it's pitiful. so many whiners - we voted for them now they have to do something!

meanwhile they let limbaugh and hannity and sons trash and threaten their candidates and causes all day long without peep because it hurts their heads to listen to it.

their free speech blasted from the biggest soapbox in the country must be countered with more free speech or it dominates.

[depakid]

26. Chalk that up to media deregulation- which Clintpon furthered along considerably

Reminds me of the old Aesop fable about the eagle shot with an arrow fletched with a feather from his own wing.

[certainot]

27. Fairness Doctrine went first and the radio soapbox was essential forcing clinton

around, hamstringing him and selling the 'gingrich' revolution and all of it's shit.

whether he was gung ho for that deregulation or was forced into it the talk radio monopoly made it much more likely.

[boomerbust]

25. I knew it

Hillary voters were the smartest and most informed in this country.:smoke:

[Jakes Progress]

28. The neocon program to ruin education in America

is showing remarkable fruit. With a little more testing and some more privatization we can have thought almost completely wiped out in ten years.

[marmar]

30. Dumber than.......