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Democracy on Its Deathbed

How many times have you heard a politician or a political pundit say something to the effect of “the American people are too smart for that”?

If you watch the Sunday news shows, or any cable news for that matter, you’ve heard it many times. The only problem is, it’s not true. Sure, Americans are plenty smart. Like most developed nations, our nation is home to a highly educated population with ample access to the calories and high standards of living that are the hallmarks of modern civilizations. But overall intelligence is not the same as civic intelligence. A space genius can build a rocket that can land upright on its launchpad without knowing a damn thing about how his own government works while your HR manager may well be able to explain the intricacies of presidential primaries around the office coffeepot.

What separates these folks isn’t IQ or what they study in school. What marks them distinct from each other is interest. To illustrate this, think of something you like a lot. It can be anything: sports, Hollywood, cooking, fashion. Whatever it is, your interests and passions are an important driving force that builds and strengthens your working knowledge and I bet you know a lot about it. Sports fans can list half the roster of every major-­league team in the country. Football fans can still recount the ins and outs of Deflategate. Now think of something that doesn’t interest you at all. If you could care less about, say, country music, you probably know very little about it and can’t name very many people involved in the country music world. 

See the knowledge gap between the things you’re interested in and the things you aren’t? Now consider America’s current political landscape. If you’re an average American, politics isn’t your jam, which means you don’t fill your precious time following, worrying about, or even understanding political events.

Because you’re reading this book, you likely have more interest in politics than the average American (much more), so it’s important to accept this fact right off the top: the average working political knowledge of the average American voter sucks.

Sound harsh? Well, I’m being generous. When behavioral research first emerged in the field of political science in the 1950s, it uncovered some stunning findings. For the first time ever, political scientists quantified that the average American knew next to nothing about politics and government. But don’t worry, these political scientists asserted, because in our unique two-­party system Americans don’t need to know much to adequately fulfill their democratic obligations. They can simply use a candidate’s party identification as a heuristic (a shortcut) to quickly figure out which candidate to vote for—no mental commitment needed!

In fact, the American Political Science Association published a report way back in 1950 arguing that it would be really great if America had two “responsible” parties with clearly discernible platforms, programs, and ideologies so that lesser-­informed Americans could make even better use of the party heuristic when deciding whom to vote for.

This is why you should always be careful what you wish for.

If we’re going to understand why the Democrats’ traditional electioneering efforts come up short, which we soon will, look no further than our inability to accept that the American voter is, at best, rough clay. Some of the most important works of art started out that way. We can work with rough clay. We can soften it, mold it, change it. Republicans have long understood this and have built an electioneering system that shapes the electorate and meets voters where they actually are.

Much of the Democrats’ system does not do this. Many of the Democratic Party’s leaders wrongly assume that American voters know their civics and engage in politics, which results in an electioneering strategy aimed at selling a product few want to buy or have interest in. In my line of work as an analyst, I often hear, “But everyone already knows [insert political fact]!” No, no, they don’t. And we’re gonna spend the next few pages proving it.

First, consider this: The nonpartisan Annenberg Public Policy Center regularly measures what Americans know about politics in its annual Constitution Day Civics Survey. In September 2022, Annenberg researchers found that less than half of the 1,113 Americans they surveyed, only 47 percent, could name (not explain, name!) all three branches of the U.S. government. And that’s an improvement from the recent past. Back in 2006, only 33 percent could name all three branches. Asked to name any of the five rights guaranteed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 37 percent of those surveyed by Annenberg couldn’t name a single one.

Another respected nonpartisan research organization, the Pew Research Center, found that not long after John Roberts cast the Supreme Court’s deciding vote to uphold Obamacare in 2012, only 39 percent of the thousand-­plus Americans surveyed could even identify him as chief justice. And a 2020 survey by New York’s Stony Brook University suggests up to 80 percent of Americans follow politics only “casually or not at all.”

These are lights-­and-­sirens warnings about the state of America’s democracy. Our political system is sick and barely wheezing by on life support.

Healthy democracies around the world are defined by values like equal treatment under the law, widespread access to voting and fair elections, the acceptance of majority rule, and the tolerance of nonviolent dissenters and opposition parties. Citizens in healthy democracies vote consistently and regularly because they understand the consequences of low participation. They know that if they stop being part of their own democracy, tyranny will fill the void. They understand that democracy is fragile, a lesson World War II taught Europe well.

Many Americans, however, don’t understand that fragility—or have forgotten it. We take our democracy for granted and have, until recently, been lucky enough to live in a country so stable and well run that most of its citizens can completely ignore the government and the people who run it. You cannot ignore the government in authoritarian regimes like Iran or Russia because it’s up your ass every day.

If you do happen to follow the day-­to-­day work of Congress—if you know the who’s who of the political world, its winners and the losers, who’s up for reelection—then you may find it difficult to understand the civic behavior and political opinions of average Americans who don’t follow politics closely at all. Many Americans wake up, maybe scan some quick headlines, work all day, attend school band concerts or ball games, catch a show on Netflix, chill if they’re lucky, then go to bed without a single thought about whatever happened in Congress or at the White House.