Idiocy

Sometimes it shocks me that democracy works at all:

Nixon presided over an unprecedented expansion of the welfare state, established affirmative action, created the Environmental Protection Agency, proposed a guaranteed annual income and national health insurance, and established closer relations with communist China and the USSR. But he was still widely perceived as a right-winger. Similarly, liberals rallied around President Bill Clinton, while conservatives rushed to condemn him, despite his endorsement of conservative policies on free trade, welfare reform, crime control, and other important issues. Liberals defended Clinton and conservatives attacked him in large part because of what he represented on a symbolic level as a "draft dodger" and philanderer, rather than on the basis of his substantive policies (Posner 1999). In both the Nixon and Clinton cases, the desire of liberal and conservative "fans" to rally around their leader or condemn a perceived ideological adversary blinded them to important aspects of the president’s policies—despite the fact that information about these policies was readily available.

Today, the hostility of partisan liberal Democrats to President George W. Bush, and the desire of partisan conservative Republicans to defend him, have largely blinded many in both groups to his adoption of numerous liberal domestic policies. To take just one example, Bush has presided over the largest expansion of domestic spending since (ironically) the presidency of Richard Nixon (Bartlett 2006). Thus, partisan opinion has to a large extent ignored an important aspect of Bush’s policies.

That's from a paper by Ilya Somin of George Mason University - School of Law. His larger point is that people are much more likely to vote than they are to have any useful understanding of the politicians and platforms that they are voting for. There's nothing to be done about it, really. Republican democracy is ugly and inefficient, but it's so obviously superior to all alternatives that I can't help but believe that America needs to be an exporter of democracy. The world would be a better place if every political system was as messed up as ours.

On the other hand, let's stop with all of these idiotic Rock The Vote campaigns. Our system can function despite voter ignorance, but that doesn't mean we should turn ignorant voting into a civic virtue.