This Just In: American Voters Are Stupid

Continuing on with today's theme of the ignorance of the American electorate, Dr. Robert Schenkman of George Mason University presents all of the appalling data about just how uninformed and disengaged American voters are. To wit:

--Six in 10 Americans aged 16 to 24 couldn't locate Iraq on a map
--Two in five can name all three branches of government
--Fewer than half know who Karl Marx was or which war saw the Battle of Bunker Hill

etc., etc., etc.

Yes, Americans don't know much about politics, history, economics, government, and so on and so forth. (Funny how they just go on being the most successful country in the fossil record.) And admittedly, I am pretty sure that I would find dinner with those six in ten Iraq ignoramuses pretty dull.

But how about trying this on as an answer: being an American entails, in large part, the right to ignore politics most of the time. Our elites place such value on the glib, superficial, pseudo-knowledge that constitutes being "informed" it is impossible for them to appreciate how for most Americans all this stuff coastal dwellers between Boston and Washington, D.C. find so interesting does nothing but induce a ferocious bout of yawning everywhere else. And the ones who are yawning are they who have correctly grasped the intention of the Founders and appreciate the beauty of the constitutional order which both point in the same direction: enjoy your life, raise your family, engage in commercial activities and tune into the national debate only if and when you absolutely must. I do not regard American indifference to, and ignorance of, politics and government as a sickness but as a sign of social health. Let the Europeans fixate on these things. They deserve it.