The Price America Pays For Ignorant Americans

Among the reactions to Donald Trump’s conviction in New York last month, I was struck by something Richard Thau said the other day.

Thau conducts focus groups for the public opinion research firm Engagious. He coordinated with NPR to share audio from two very small groups. Just six people per group, and not a sample of the electorate overall, but remarkable in the impression you get from their responses, or at least the impression I got.

As I listened to the group respond to Thau’s questions, I thought, “Do these people follow current events? Do they even understand the issues they’re being asked about?”

You can listen to the report yourself, but two things Thau said about the focus groups stood out. The first came when the host asked if some level of deception played a role in their responses.

“If they’re being deceived,” said Thau, “they don’t seem to realize that they’re being deceived.”

You know the old saying: The first step to solving a problem is to realize you have a problem.

I’m reluctant to say these people are just plain dumb (though I’ve posed that question before). But when the host asked if it was fair to see these people as “low information voters,” Thau said, “I would say that they are generally not paying close attention to what’s going on day-to-day politically.”

That unawareness, either due to incuriousness, obliviousness or laziness, seems a microcosm of who we are today, a society that, as it moved forward, became dumber — OK, less informed.

A scary thought here is that those folks may not even know how unaware they are. Instead of willfully ignorant, a choice, they’re unwittingly ignorant — ignorant of their ignorance. Or, ignorance is bliss. And again, not necessarily because they’re stupid.

Bla