The Morality of Political Ignorance
2nd April 2011
Whenever we have an election, pundits and politicians wax eloquent about the supposed need to increase voter turnout. Much less attention is paid to the question of whether the people going to the polls actually understand the issues they’re voting on.
I have always found puzzling the whole ‘get out the vote’ concept. Surely, if people were interested in the outcome of an election, they’d vote? And if they’re not interested in the outcome of the election, why badger them into it? The problem that needs to be addressed is not the number of people voting, but the number of people sufficiently interested in voting to actually do it.
It does not surprise me that the ‘get out the vote’ crowd consists of people whose lives are consumed by politics and political issues. Most people have higher priorities: family, job, recreation, sports.
I have no objection to people who are consumed by politics, just as I have no objection to people who paint up their faces for football games (although I think a good case could be made that people who paint their faces for football games have a more positive impact on our civilization).
But such people are ‘activists’, and the distinguishing characteristic of ‘activists’ is that they are utterly convinced that what they find important is what everybody ought to find important; and (tellingly) therefore there is something wrong with those who don’t. It is but a short step from thinking ‘there’s something wrong with these people who don’t consider important the things I consider important’ to ‘these people ought not to be allowed to participate because they’ll get it wrong’.
April 2nd, 2011 at 15:44
I’ve been hip-deep in politics this last three years, since I first became a candidate for the legislature myself.
I’ve never heard a hint of the idea that people shouldn’t participate because they’ll get it wrong. Far worse, in my view, is the commonly-held feeling that people who don’t take an interest can still be motivated to go out and vote the way the activist wants them to.
This explains the entire campaign strategy of the Democratic Party, and big chunk of the Republicans’ strategy, too.
April 4th, 2011 at 15:19
The reality of voting is that very few people get involved in understanding the candidates/issues or in actually showing up to participate in the process. A teacher told me that he would take his 18 year old students to the local party caucus after an election. Because a dozen or so of them would show up, they could vote in anything they wanted. Sure, a position to abolish grades in school would probably get voted out at the next level of the party, but it was still shocking to understand that a few people getting involved could actually have an impact. If a significant number of voters in that area had bothered to attend, this wouldn’t happen. (The teacher told me this at a party meeting that probably had 10 attendees.)
If you saw “Charlie Wilson’s War”, there’s a scene where Tom Hanks explains how he (Charlie Wilson) got involved in politics because a neighbor killed his dog and he was able to ruin the neighbor’s election by bringing a few poor people to the polls. This is not lost on the so-called ‘activists’. If the pool of people who are involved is small, then you can out-vote them by bussing a few dummies to the polls.
During the last election, street interviews showed that many people believed Sarah Palin was running for VP under Obama. (Yes, it does make one wonder who dresses these people and sends them out in the public.) Since the Democrats realized that facts are boring and feelings “sell”, elections have become part of the entertainment industry. The masses simply have a hard time sorting out what portion of the information thrown at them is real and what part is scripted. (And a case can be made that it’s all scripted!)
Can you go to the voters and make them understand that this election, this candidate is important and get them to think logically about it? Can you convince them to nominate and vote for candidates that stand for something?
Probably not.
We’re probably stuck trying to find candidates that are great actors and will stick to our political script.