Willful Ignorance

Mike the Mad Biologist has an interesting post up at his blog. He is incredulous, as am I, at the number of Americans who have utilized government programs, but did not do not realize what they used was in fact, from the government.

I have reproduced the chart to which he refers. It is a little small; you may have better luck reading it at his site, which I linked above. Note that the original study is from Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era (2009), which can be downloaded here (PDF). It is an academic study, so teabaggers won't read it, and Sarah Palin can't.

As Mad Mike observes: "Anyone who follows politics regularly is aware of the phenomenon of the voter who 'wants the government to stay out of my Medicare' (Medicare is a government program). But a huge fraction of recipients of government aid do not believe they have received government aid."

While the data are subject to different interpretations, I think Mike is spot-on when he says:

 

"This seems a case of willful ignorance by definition. Government aid is for lazy slackers, for 'welfare queens', and, in some people's minds, for those people. Decent, hard-working people don't receive government aid, even when they do. In other words, any program that helps middle-class people, people like themselves, is, by definition, not aid, because government aid is inherently pejorative."

 

Pervasive and willful ignorance of government's role is the legacy of Ronald Reagan, who assured us repeatedly that government was our biggest problem.  Republicans have continued to frame the debate over government's role, while Democrats have responded ineffectively. A generation of fantastically ill-informed voters is the result.

 

Policy Preferences and Democratic Weakness

On Wednesday I shared a small taste of Bill Maher's skeptical attitude about American voters' understanding of issues and policies. He, of course, is not the only one who notes a wide and long-standing anti-scientific, anti-intellectual streak in this country.

Is it getting worse? It would seem so, in part because of a new level of right-wing aggressiveness, much of it associated with Sarah Palin and teabaggers. Palin sneers at those pointy-headed intellectuals, and the teabaggers eat it up. In her crowd, anti-science has become fashionable and, perversely, is viewed as virtuous.

And yet...  

RJ Eskow, a Senior Fellow with The Campaign for America's Future, cites many reasons to feel good about the wisdom of Americans, at least a majority of us. He has collected some impressive polling data, complete with compelling pie charts that show clear majorities of Americans prefer progressive legislation and policy choices. To wit:

     1.  A large majority opposes cuts to social security;

     2.  Seven in ten oppose raising the retirement age;

     3.  A plurality says to raise taxes on the wealthy;

     4.  Nearly 4 in 5 are against cuts in Medicare;

     5.  Nearly 2 in 3 oppose cuts in lending for college tuition;

     6.  About 6 in 10 say to do more to assist unemployed workers

     7.  4 in 5 say to do more to reduce poverty
     8.  Seven in 10 favor more regulation on Wall Street

Such clear preferences do not demonstrate that people actually understand the details or implications of their choices (3 in 10 don't favor Wall Street regulation?); but they do show that most people want government to help them, not get out of the way, as Republicans since Reagan have claimed. 

As I have posted before, it is essential that we understand the role of political identity. The polls Eskow cites suggest most American prefer, wait for it -- socialism -- a strong dollop of the European model, complete with much more equitable income distribution (say it ain't so Ayn Rand). Many gravitate towards Republicans because it suits their personalities. They want to see politicians project strength, conviction, and detemination. Republicans may have an unusual obsession with swagger, symbolism, and simplistic interpretations of complex issues, but nobody likes to see weakness in their elected officials. And that is what we have mostly seen in the last two years with Dems in the White House and Senate.

People want the Democrats to win, but they have no patience with any party that says it stands for the middle class and then repeatedly squanders its opportunities. Many Americans may be uninformed, many have short memories, and many are impatient, not realizing how long it takes to turn our economy around. Those are faults of the electorate that complicate governing in the US. But nobody is making Democratic politicians look weak except themselves.

Republicans write the script only because Dems let them.

Dogs And Teabaggers Sense Fear

Here is a video I meant to put up earlier. Bill Maher and Michael Moore capture much of the essence of teabagger mentality, and for that matter, much of what studies on authoritarian personalities have demonstrated long before anyone heard of teabaggers, Palin, or Glenn Beck.

Maher makes the point that many Americans are like dogs. That will get the right wing's assortment of serial resenters frothing, but he makes a cringe-worthy and accurate assertion that so many Americans are like dogs because they don't really understand what is being said; they look for voice inflection, style, symbolism, and attitude.

Ok, so dogs don't get symbolism, but Maher is right to emphasize fear as a motivator for dogs and teabaggers alike. Millions let their gut feelings be their guide, which is why, as Maher notes, so many seem impervious to rational discourse. On numerous issues wonkish progressives hold dear, teabaggers do not simply disagree with progressives, and offer a reasoned counter argument; they do not understand the issue in the first place. 

But listen carefully to Moore. He stresses a point you have heard me say before: Dems lost seats in November because the 18-24 crowd didn't bother to vote, while their parent and grandparents did. Moore says 70% of the 18-24 demographic voted for Obama, which sounds about right. However, while 23 million of them voted in '08, only 9 million did so in 2010. Yet Republicans only garnered 5 million more votes in 2010.

Do the math: it's all about voter turnout.

 ________

Only Teabaggers Will Be Surprised

It seems so long ago. Congress was fighting over health care reform. Republicans, well-paid by the health care lobby, dutifully trotted out their inane talking points.  Sarah Palin, appealing as she does to low-information voters, insisted health care reform would bring us death panels. And teabaggers once again had their facts wrong as they loudly proclaimed the US had the best health care system in the world. 

It is not news to the rest of us that any number of studies demonstrate otherwise. The most recent has just been released, and it makes clear that inadequate and deeply inequitable access to health care in the US is driving down life expectancy. An abstract, a PDF summary, and an explanation of the methodology, can be found here. Additional overview is at the Independent. 

Here's to the teabagger rallying cry; "Bring back pre-existing conditions. Vote Republican."

Slouching Towards Stockholm

The disconnect between the values of a majority of Americans and what Republicans claim those values to be has always been substantial. And with the Republican leadership, goaded by deeply conflicted teabaggers, lurching ever further to the right, that chasm is wider than it has been in generations. Paul Rosenberg has written on the jarring disparity between what conservatives say they value, and thus who they vote for, and the actual economic policies they support. Have a look and see what he says about conservative identity. And see Cenk Uygur's take on why Washington is more right-wing than the rest of the country.

Succinctly put, many Republican voters identify with the visceral appeal of Republican candidates, the imagery, the bravado, and the symbolism, complete with flags, uniforms, bald eagles, and feel-good homilies. They admire and usually vote for candidates that project strength and certainty.  It can be nutty nonsense, but for many conservatives, that seems to be beside the point. I'm looking at you, Sarah Palin.

But as Rosenberg shows, most Americans, and even a majority of Republicans, prefer Democratic economic policies; not candidates, mind you, but the actual policies. Take, for example, the demands of confused teabaggers that government keeps its hands of "my medicare".

It is thus very instructive to see that according to researchers at Harvard and Duke, an overwhelming majority of Americans, 92 percent, would prefer a society with far less income disparity, opting for one much more like Sweden. That is generally true for young and old, Repubican or Democrat.

The study also indicated that Americans generally are not aware of how profound the wealth disparities in the US really are. When asked, most estimated the distribution of wealth in the US to be rather modest, once again providing figures that more accurately represented Sweden.

You know what is galling about this? The inability of Democrats to get these points across to more Americans. Republicans keep offering policy prescriptions that favor the rich, while telling the working class they must sacrifice. And Democrats stand there, wring their hands, and wonder how they should campaign.

It's like neither party really wants to win.