Political Ignorance in Congress
21st July 2013
Voter ignorance and elite ignorance are in fact closely related. If the voters were more knowledgeable, they could select candidates who demonstrate a deep understanding of policy issues and, to paraphrase Kaiser, “know and care more about substance than politics.” But in a world where most people don’t even know the name of their representative, they are unlikely to be able to evaluate his or her knowledge of policy issues. Moreover, evaluating that knowledge would require the voters themselves to know more about policy than most of them actually do. In this way, voter ignorance helps produce political leaders who are often ignorant themselves, albeit not quite to the same degree.