{"id":1045,"date":"2004-08-27T14:37:42","date_gmt":"2004-08-27T22:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/08\/27\/interesting-and-depressing-article-on-how-people-vote\/"},"modified":"2004-08-27T14:37:42","modified_gmt":"2004-08-27T22:37:42","slug":"interesting-and-depressing-article-on-how-people-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1045","title":{"rendered":"Interesting and depressing article on how people vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

The current New Yorker <\/i>has an interesting – but rather depressing – article on how most Americans decide who to vote for<\/a>. Here’s a sample, but I recommend reading the whole thing:<\/p>\n

…electoral outcomes, as far as \u201cthe will of the people\u201d is concerned, are essentially arbitrary. The fraction of the electorate that responds to substantive political arguments is hugely outweighed by the fraction that responds to slogans, misinformation, \u201cfire alarms\u201d (sensational news), \u201cOctober surprises\u201d (last-minute sensational news), random personal associations, and \u201cgotchas.\u201d Even when people think that they are thinking in political terms, even when they believe that they are analyzing candidates on the basis of their positions on issues, they are usually operating behind a veil of political ignorance. They simply don\u2019t understand, as a practical matter, what it means to be \u201cfiscally conservative,\u201d or to have \u201cfaith in the private sector,\u201d or to pursue an \u201cinterventionist foreign policy.\u201d They can\u2019t hook up positions with policies. From the point of view of democratic theory, American political history is just a random walk through a series of electoral options. Some years, things turn up red; some years, they turn up blue.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The current New Yorker has an interesting – but rather depressing – article on how most Americans decide who to vote for. Here’s a sample, but I recommend reading the whole thing: …electoral outcomes, as far as \u201cthe will of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}