ZadekpediaVoter ignorance and the founders
Bob Zadek opened the episode by recalling Richard Beeman’s book on the making of the Constitution, which prompted him to note how little enthusiasm the founders had for democracy. He described the government after ratification in 1788, when the only direct voter participation was the election of members of the House of Representatives; Senators were elected by state houses, voters did not elect judges, and voters elected electors who elected the President. Bob framed democracy as a check on government rather than an end in itself Is America Doomed by Voter Ignorance? (2013).
Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University School of Law and author of Democracy and Political Ignorance, subtitled Why Smaller Government is Smarter, largely agreed. He said most founders were worried about voter ignorance and that this was one reason they limited popular participation. He named James Madison and Gouverneur Morris among founders who believed the public was often ignorant about politics and irrational in evaluating the information it did have. Somin noted that some founders, Jefferson for instance, valued popular participation as an end in itself, but were still suspicious of it.
Why the problem matters
Somin said he had been interested in the issue for at least 15 years, since he was a student, and that it affects almost every other policy problem, whether the spending crisis, gay rights, racial discrimination, economic regulation, or environmental policy. He said survey data usually show substantial ignorance, which feeds back into government policy with negative effects. Bob noted his own informal poll found 100 percent of his listeners knew these issues, and joked that the rest of the country was not a mirror image of his audience.
Statistics on political knowledge
Somin cited a Kaiser Foundation poll conducted in April finding that 42 percent of the public did not realize Obamacare was still the law, and a later poll finding 79 percent had heard nothing or very little about the Obamacare exchanges. On the federal budget, he said the public thinks at least 5 to 10 percent or more is spent on foreign aid when in reality it is less than 1 percent, while underestimating spending on Medicare and Social Security.
On the basic operation of government, Somin cited a 2006 poll finding only 42 percent of the public could name the three branches of the federal government. He said the public often rewards and punishes incumbents for short-term economic changes they likely had nothing to do with, and that incumbent politicians get a boost when local sports teams win championships. Governors in farm states, he said, tend to be blamed for droughts. He attributed this to the infinitesimally small chance any one vote will matter — roughly one in 60 million in a presidential election.
Rational ignorance and political fans
Bob described himself as consumed by politics, reading blogs while brushing his teeth and talking politics at the checkout counter, and asked Somin to expand on rational self-interest and why it makes no sense to be informed. Somin said it makes very little sense to be informed beyond a minimal level if the only reason is to be a better voter, but that people may acquire political knowledge for enjoyment, as sports fans do. He called such people “political fans.” Somin said political fans suffer from a further problem: they often do a poor job of evaluating the information they know, overvaluing what confirms their preexisting views, and that studies find the people who know most about politics are some of the most biased. He distinguished voting, an extremely low-cost activity that can be rational, from acquiring more than minimal political knowledge, which is much more costly.
The failure of the miracle of aggregation
Bob asked whether uninformed voters offset each other while the informed minority decides outcomes. Somin said this is only likely to work if errors in one direction almost exactly offset errors in the other, and that data on most issues suggest this is not true — that increasing people’s knowledge significantly changes the distribution of opinion. He added that party platforms and candidates themselves would likely be different if the electorate were better informed, because political professionals know they face a mostly ignorant electorate.
Across episodes
The episodes cover only the 2013-09-21 episode, so the sources show no development across episodes.