Part of the appeal for the left side of politics is that to vote for the Democrats or ALP the amount of knowledge and reasoning ability required to see their point is close to nil. Just promise what everyone wants and tell them you’re on their side and you can line up near on half the population. That the meagre welfare actually provided turns out to be a low income trap is just by the way. It’s the thought that counts.

Which brings us to an article at The American Thinker titled appropriately The American Ignoramus. Here’s the point:

One particular Pew Research Center poll illustrates the average citizen’s paltry stock of political information. Between July 26-29, 2012, the Pew Research Center asked a random sample of adults twelve questions tapping knowledge of the presidential election. Some questions probed knowledge of where the candidates stood on key issues; others plumbed information about the candidates’ background. The average score was 6.5 questions right, or 54% of the total. Forty-nine percent got six or fewer questions correct.

It really is depressing to dwell on it. Our constitutions were developed in a different age when reading the press and properly debating issues was a general pastime. Now we are into the politics of the lowest common denominator.

What are the consequences of widespread political ignorance? Manipulation of ordinary people by what Angelo Codevilla calls the “ruling class,” which includes political leaders, the news and entertainment media, and special interest groups. Instead of public opinion shaping public policy, most of the time Jane or John Q. Public has no political influence, because she/he knows little, if anything, about what is going on in the corridors of power.
Unless someone can find a way to stimulate greater grassroots political attentiveness — the more interested people are in public affairs, the better informed they are — expecting a substantially better-informed citizenry is wishful thinking. There are just too many spheres of life, such as family, friends, work, health, faith, recreation, entertainment, etc., that people believe are more pressing than public affairs. In the main, politics is a matter of tertiary concern.

Tertiary not as in a tertiary institution but as the third rung down in the active interest of voters. The conclusion:

What does it mean? At best, the U.S. will have bad political leaders, chosen by low information voters. At worst, American democracy will slowly shrivel due to widespread ignorance.

Ignorance seldom leads to happy endings.

Yet when it comes down to it, the main force in forming opinions are those that produce the media reports everyone depends on for their political information. And as they are as stupid generally in their voting patterns as the lowest of the low information voters wherever the solution might lie, it is not in getting people to become more informed by reading the press.