CHAPTER 1

The Extent of Political Ignorance

Nothing strikes the student of public opinion anddemocracy more forcefully than the paucity ofinformation most people possess about politics.

—POLITICAL SCIENTIST JOHN FEREJOHN

THE REALITY THAT MOST voters are often ignorant of even very basicpolitical information is one of the better-established findings of socialscience. Decades of accumulated evidence reinforces this conclusion.

THE PERVASIVENESS OF IGNORANCE

the sheer depth of most individual voters' ignorance may be shocking toreaders not familiar with the research. Rarely if ever is any one piece ofknowledge absolutely essential to voters. It may not matter much if mostAmericans are ignorant of one or another particular fact about politics.But the pervasiveness of ignorance about a wide range of political issuesand leaders is far more troubling.

Many examples help illustrate the point. A series of polls conductedjust before the Republican Party chose Representative Paul Ryan to betheir vice-presidential nominee in August 2012 found that 43 percentof Americans had never heard of Ryan and only 32 percent knew thathe was a member of the House of Representatives. Unlike GovernorSarah Palin in 2008, Ryan was not a relative unknown catapulted ontothe national stage by a vice-presidential nomination. As his party's leadingspokesman on budgetary and fiscal issues, he had been a prominentfigure in American politics for several years.

One of the key policy positions staked out by President Barack Obamain his successful 2012 reelection campaign was his plan to raise incometaxes for persons earning over $250,000 per year, an idea much discussedduring the campaign and supported by a large majority of the public—69percent in a December 2012 Pew Research Center poll. A February 2012survey conducted for the political newspaper The Hill actually askedrespondents what tax rates people with different income levels shouldpay. It found that 75 percent of likely voters wanted the highest-incomeearners to pay taxes lower than 30 percent of income, the top rate at thetime of the 2012 election. this inconsistency suggests that many peoplesupported increasing the tax rates of high earners because they did notrealize how high taxes were already.

Despite years of controversy over the War on terror, the Iraq War,and American relations with the Muslim world, only 32 percent ofAmericans in a 2007 survey could name "Sunni" or "Sunnis" as one of"the two major branches of Islam" whose adherents "are seeking politicalcontrol in Iraq," even though the question prompted them with thename of the other major branch (the Shiites). Such basic knowledge isnot, perhaps, essential to evaluation of U.S. policy toward the Muslimworld. But it would at least be useful.

Equally striking is the fact that in late 2003, over 60 percent of Americansdid not realize that a massive increase in domestic spending had madea substantial contribution to the recent explosion in the federal deficit.Most of the public is unaware of a wide range of important governmentprograms structured as tax deductions and payments for services. Asa result, they are also unaware of the massive extent to which most ofthese programs transfer benefits primarily to the relatively affluent.

A survey taken immediately after the closely contested November2002 congressional elections found that only about 32 percent ofrespondents knew that the Republicans had held control of the Houseof Representatives prior to the election. this result is consistent withresearch showing widespread ignorance of congressional party controlin previous elections, though usually knowledge levels were higher thanin 2002.

Such widespread ignorance is not of recent origin. As of December1994, a month after the takeover of Congress by Newt Gingrich's Republicans,57 percent of Americans had never even heard of Gingrich, whosecampaign strategy and policy stances had received massive publicity inthe immediately preceding weeks. In 1964, in the midst of the ColdWar, only 38 percent were aware that the Soviet Union was not a memberof the U.S.-led Nato alliance. Later, in 1986, the majority could notidentify Mikhail Gorbachev, the controversial new leader of the SovietUnion, by name. Much of the time, only a bare majority know whichparty has control of the Senate, some 70 percent cannot name both oftheir state's senators, and the majority cannot name any congressionalcandidate in their district at the height of a campaign.

Three aspects of voter ignorance deserve particular attention. First,many voters are ignorant not just about specific policy issues but aboutthe basic structure of government and how it operates. Majorities areignorant of such basic aspects of the U.S. political system as who has thepower to declare war, the respective functions of the three branches ofgovernment, and who controls monetary policy. A 2006 Zogby poll foundthat only 42 percent of Americans could even name the three branchesof the federal government: executive, legislative, and judicial. Another2006 survey found that only 28 percent could name two or more of thefive rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. A2002 Columbia University study indicated that 35 percent believed thatKarl Marx's dictum "From each according to his ability to each accordingto his need" is in the Constitution (34 percent said they did not know),and only one-third understood that a Supreme Court decision overrulingRoe v. Wade would not make abortion illegal throughout the country.

Ignorance of the structure of government suggests that voters oftennot only cannot choose between specific competing policy programs butalso cannot easily assign credit and blame for policy outcomes to theright office-holders. Ignorance of the constraints imposed on governmentby the Constitution may also give voters an inaccurate picture ofthe scope of elected officials' powers.

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