Engineering Better Voters

[Geee]

National Review:

It can’t be done, so don’t bother.

Political activists, in rare moments of deep despondency, have been known to poke around at the truth: The problem with mass democracy is voters. Activists, whether of the Left or the Right, are almost always Do-Something types (hence activism rather than inactivism), and so they toy from time to time with schemes for engineering a better voter.

 

For sunnier sorts, this means pushing for better and fuller voter education; for those of a more nubilous disposition, it means an electoral cull.

 

What we call voter education often is an exercise in flattering ourselves to the point of delusion. One hears this sort of thing all the time: “If the voters only understood our position, they would support our position.” Maria Svart of the Democratic Socialists of America, a Bernie Sanders supporter, says: “Many Americans, if they understood socialism, would like it.” Similarly: “If they understood libertarianism, they would probably be libertarians. It’s a PR problem.” And: “If they understood conservatism, they wouldn’t be liberals.” Etc.

 

It never occurs to political activists that the reason their preferred policies do not do well at the polling place is — radical thought — that people do not like them. Free-traders won the argument on the merits two centuries ago during the debate over the Corn Laws (the party organ of the Anti-Corn-Law League lives on as The Economist), but that does not matter. Many (perhaps not most) reasonably well-educated people understand gains from trade (though Tufts students apparently do not know what comparative advantage is), and Pat Buchanan probably encountered the works of Ricardo at Georgetown, but they still do not want free trade. They probably have their reasons, mostly bad ones, but the problem with anti-free-market voters isn’t that they have failed to read Economics in One Lesson. Likewise, what’s holding back voters who think that maybe social democracy under a constitutional monarchy isn’t the best road for these United States isn’t that they’ve never heard of Sweden.