It’s almost inevitable whenever any political group loses an election that they blame the stupidity, gullibility and/or lack of moral character on the part of their opponents for the loss. When George W. Bush won reelection in 2004, liberals infamously tried to claim that stupid people preferred Bush by a 4-to-1 margin over Kerry. Similarly, in his book Vision of the Anointed, economist Thomas Sowell observed:
Disagree with someone on the Right and he is likely to think you wrong, obtuse, foolish, a dope. Disagree with someone on the Left and he is likely to think you insensitive, selfish, a sell-out, possibly evil.
But instead of any particular political party, what if the entire enterprise of democracy is the problem because most voters on either side are wrong, obtuse, foolish and dopey? That’s the conclusion of a new study led by Cornell University psychologist David Dunning, which shows that the vast majority of voters are not only too stupid or ignorant to know that they are stupid or ignorant, but also too stupid or ignorant to tell when the same is true of a candidate. Continued...
