raleighnet.org

According to some guy named Converse who did studies about 50 years ago, and the New Yorker story The Unpolitical Animal, only about 10% of people in the US have a clear understanding of what the various parties and candidates stand for.

Even when people think that they are thinking in political terms, even when they believe that they are analyzing candidates on the basis of their positions on issues, they are usually operating behind a veil of political ignorance. They simply don’t understand, as a practical matter, what it means to be “fiscally conservative,” or to have “faith in the private sector,” or to pursue an “interventionist foreign policy.” They can’t hook up positions with policies. From the point of view of democratic theory, American political history is just a random walk through a series of electoral options. Some years, things turn up red; some years, they turn up blue.

It’s interesting. My knee-jerk reaction is to reject this as a bunch of condescension. I imagine the thought process behind writing this going something like “Why, if they were thinking then obviously they’d think like me.”

It would explain some things though. How anybody could be undecided at this point, in this election cycle is completely beyond me. Of course I’m even more amazed that if polls are to be believed, half of the those that are going to vote are going to vote for a president who is so clearly wrong for this country that it’s roughly equivalent to putting your hand on a burning stove after watching 10 other people do the same thing and have to be rushed to the hospital. I just can’t imagine how the choice could be any more obvious, and yet…