A Super Breezy Sunday Take on a Totally Serious Book Review

Vote! Or Die Despite it, Sucker!

By Gil Brady, 7-08-07

JACKSON, Wyo. – In “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Politics,” Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University, allegedly dares to say that not only have economists and political scientists misunderstood the problem of why too much democracy often results in crappy public policies, but they waste time analyzing why most voters are ignorant about political issues.

For Caplan, and maybe The New Yorker, (whose articles have increasingly become more proletarian, pedestrian and simplified, that is to say “sexy” as they’ve had to spice up their mix over the years to stay competitive), these professional Ivy League eggheads are incorrectly framing the question they labor in vain to answer.

Instead, the GMU man says, in so many other writers’ words, that intellectuals concerned about the state of democracy, here and abroad, should have long realized: “It’s not that too many voters are ignorant about the issues, it’s that they are simply wrong about the issues,” which is an entirely different ball of wax.

Indeed, as is a successful, lifelong quack who, while posing as a doctor, irreparably harms an entire generation of patients.

According to the magazine, Caplan asserts that the average voter’s wrongheaded ideas generate policies that make society as a whole worse off.

And it isn’t because “The System,” (that amorphous grab bag for everything beyond our power with the power to rule and ruin our lives), is broken or isn’t working properly. Nor is it because too many otherwise good people are getting sucked in and distracted by the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Bill Maher. Not to mention the ruling gang of Wall Street economic hit men and their K Street front men, snuffing out the public’s interest over $1,000 lunches between golfing on the dole in Scotland.

The problem, reportedly, is: “Democracy fails,” Caplan says, “because it does what voters want.”

According to The New Yorker, Caplan thinks that the best cure is less democracy.

Now, I don’t know if I’d go that far. I mean, any less voter turnout and we’ll be handing the country over to flag-burning ants and Big Oil guzzling Godzilla-wannabes. And you know who’ll get hosed in that lopsided ass-kicking contest.

Then again, I haven’t read the book, yet.

However, it seems like most vainly infallible types are convinced that the other side--professional rivals, parents, rejected family members, annoying co-workers, that GD husband of your wife’s best friend--is just plain wrong.

That is to say, often in our mind’s eye, our political adversaries are our moral, factual and consequentially existential inferiors, even if we don’t have the chops to out argue them.

Sort of like the feeling one gets from listening to or reading too much Christopher Hitchens.

“Yeah, he’s friggin’ effing brilliant. Sure. And way, way more erudite than anyone without a Ph.D ought to be. But I still can’t buy his BS reasons for still supporting the war in Iwreck.”

Which to this day, Hitchens still insists was the proper thing to do.

In any case, Caplan reportedly concludes that people simply do not spend much time learning about political issues or thinking through their own positions.

(In Hitchens’ exceptional case not only has he thought through his position, but he’s gone stark-raving mad doing so).

And, much like this essay, as rehashed by smarter brows for my lowly indigestion, The New Yorker goes on to say that Caplan believes, “(Voters) may have opinions—if asked whether they are in favor of capital punishment or free-trade agreements, most people will give an answer—but the opinions are not based on information or derived from a coherent political philosophy. They are largely attitudinal and ad hoc.”

Confused? Good, just don’t forget to vote.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.