I make a claim in the opening section of the class that the government requirement is an effort by the state of Texas to combat political ignorance. Whether it is a successful effort, I don't know, but I do what I can.
I'll post a few additional items relate to the current state of political ignorance and its consequences, but here's a provocative piece from this past October by a self professed libertarian author and his take on the Donald Trump phenomenon. He notes that polls show that Trumps support - among Republicans - is highest among those with low levels of education, and that a variety of Trump's claims are not factually true. This doesn't seem to affect his support.
He concludes by noting that there is nothing new with playing to voter ignorance and even notes that it may well be a rational thing given how little one person's vote can matter. But he does note that political ignorance makes people ripe for exploitation. A point of view promoters of public education - from day one - would likely agree with.
- Click here for the story.
I'll post a few additional items relate to the current state of political ignorance and its consequences, but here's a provocative piece from this past October by a self professed libertarian author and his take on the Donald Trump phenomenon. He notes that polls show that Trumps support - among Republicans - is highest among those with low levels of education, and that a variety of Trump's claims are not factually true. This doesn't seem to affect his support.
He concludes by noting that there is nothing new with playing to voter ignorance and even notes that it may well be a rational thing given how little one person's vote can matter. But he does note that political ignorance makes people ripe for exploitation. A point of view promoters of public education - from day one - would likely agree with.
- Click here for the story.
. . . political ignorance is not a problem unique to Trump’s supporters or this particular campaign, or to any one side of the political spectrum. Decades of survey data show that most Americans have low levels of political knowledge. For example, an Annenberg Public Policy Center survey taken during the 2014 campaign, which decided control of Congress, found that only 38% knew which party controlled the House of Representatives at the time, and the same low percentage knew which one controlled the Senate.
Exploitation of ignorance was a standard political tool long before Trump decided to run for president. It was not Trump but the far more respectable President Obama who secured passage of his signature health reform law in large part by manipulating what Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber called “the stupidity of the American voter.” The president lied to the public when he repeatedly assured them that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” A 2012 YG Policy Center poll showed that 64% of Americans fell for that deception.
The problem is not that voters are stupid, or that accurate information is unavailable. Rather, for most voters, political ignorance is actually rational. No matter how well-informed you are, the probability that your vote will change the outcome of an election is tiny — only one in 60 million in a presidential election. Few Americans know the exact odds. But most have an intuitive sense that there is little payoff to carefully studying political issues. Quite rationally, they act accordingly. That behavior, however, leaves them vulnerable to Trump and others who seek to manipulate ignorance for political gain.
Despite his current lead in the polls, Trump probably won’t win the GOP nomination, much less the presidency. But even when his star fades, the political ignorance that fueled his rise will remain, ripe for exploitation by other candidates and interest groups. That, far more than his crude rhetoric, is the truly frightening reality revealed by The Donald.
