Why are American Voters so Pathetically Ignorant?

http://www.alternet.org/books/why-are-americans-so-pathetically-ignorant-about-politics?akid=13860.294211.m3nJPA&rd=1&src=newsletter1048604&t=10

The following is an excerpt from the new book Political Animals by Rick Shenkman (Basic Books, 2016): 

Imagine what it would be like if voters suddenly knew the facts. It would be like living in a democratic Camelot. Or would it? Until 1988 no one knew. Then, that year, James Fishkin, a political scientist who now teaches at Stanford, came up with the idea of a deliberative poll. In a normal poll a voter is asked a bunch of questions about subjects he may or may not know something about. That is the extent of the interaction between the pollster and the voter. The pollster then moves on to the next person. In a deliberative poll a voter is asked a bunch of questions about subjects he probably doesn’t know much about and is then educated about those subjects—usually at a weekend conference where he has the opportunity to study materials from all sides and engage in in-depth discussions about what he’s read. Experts are brought in to help participants make sense of the material they are given. At the end of the conference, by which time he has become an educated voter on the issues under review, he is surveyed again. 

The first televised deliberative poll conference held in the United States took place in the presidential election year of 1996 in Austin, Texas, over the weekend of January 19–21. The conference attracted 460 people. They rep­resented all walks of life and were drawn from diverse geographical popula­tions in both Red and Blue states. A quarter of the participants came from families with an income of less than $20,000 a year. One woman agreed to attend because she would be able to stay in a hotel with hot running water. Jim Lehrer of PBS served as the anchor. Trained moderators led the discussions. As a precaution against bias, the materials given to voters were reviewed ahead of time by two members from opposite parties, Democrat Barbara Jordan and Republican Bill Frenzel. Once again voters picked up an enormous amount of basic information, and once again they changed their opinions, moving from simple-minded answers to the sixty-six questions that were asked, to more nuanced positions. And, no, they didn’t always move in a more liberal direction. While opinion shifted in favor of bigger budgets for child care and education, the voters decided that the safety net programs would be better left to the states to manage. This suggested that ingrained ideological biases are no match for facts. Both liberals and con­servatives in the group seemed willing to let the facts shape their opinions. When conservatives became informed about the benefits of child care they swung behind programs to help the poor rear their children. So much for the belief that conservatives are so rigidly ideological that facts don’t matter.