5 Reasons Humanity Is Terrible at Democracy

Ask the average person what's wrong with government and you'll hear all about corrupt politicians, corporate lobbyists and shady backroom deals. But, of course, we elected those corrupt politicians, and the more you look at the situation, the more it appears that as people, we are just really bad at democracy. After all, science proves that ...

In the middle of the heated health care debate in 2010, the anchors at Fox News got a memo from the bosses telling them to start referring to the Democrats' plan as "government-run health insurance" rather than use the term "public option," which everyone else was using.

Why? Because CBS and NBC both ran polls showing that when you call it the "public" plan, up to 75 percent of the people are in favor -- after all, everybody likes public parks and public libraries, etc. It's a friendly word. But when polls inserted the word "government," support plummeted to 43 percent. The Exact. Same. Plan. You know, the same way that a lot more people bought canola oil after they changed the name from "rape seed oil."

"Rape was a good word before you humans fucked it up."

Likewise, only 34 percent of Americans say they strongly support "homosexuals" in the military. But a majority -- 51 percent -- strongly support "gay men and lesbians" serving in the military. That's right: You can increase the strongest support by a third by simply avoiding the "H" word. The "strongly oppose" group goes down by a third.

You can do this with virtually any issue. Try it (if you don't mind ruining your opinion of the voting public, that is). Ask us if public worker unions should be able to negotiate for their pay and people say yes. Change the wording to ask if they should be able to negotiate for higher pay, and opinion turns against them. What, did the first bunch think workers were negotiating for lower pay?

"We demand lower pay and less respect, and we won't stop working double shifts until we get it!"

Probably not. They probably thought nothing about the issue at all until the moment they were asked. We can't be educated on every issue, and the "don't know" option in a poll makes us sound like morons. So the respondent's brain probably just slapped together an opinion based on how the question made him feel at that moment. Remember that in most surveys, the most common unspoken answer is always, "Whatever it takes to get you off the phone, buddy. My burrito is getting cold."

"Yes, fine. Whatever. I support unrestricted eugenics programs for brown people. Can I get back to my vodka and soap operas now?"

But what about those of us who do follow the news? The problem there is ...

So, you figure that the above results are simply skewed by people who are watching Cake Boss instead of the nightly news. But isn't there a smart core of people who keep the TV on CNN and thus know their shit? Not according to a study done during the 2010 election, which concluded that people who watch television news are more likely to get the facts wrong than the people who just flip past it on the way to watch wrestling.

"Star Trek re-runs make us comparatively well-informed voters!"

Whether they got their info from Fox News, MSBNC, the networks or even NPR, people who relied on those sources daily did worse when answering factual questions about election issues than people who used them only sporadically.

Why? Well, part of it is that if a politician makes a bullshit claim, the news still has to report it. So along with the hard information, you're getting spin, talking points, sound bites and other bullshit issued by people whose job it is to make you vote their way regardless of the facts. At some level, people are aware this is happening -- there are countless polls showing Americans don't have favorable views of television news. But TV also remains the country's largest source of news, which means there are a lot of people who don't trust it but then turn around and rely on it anyway.

He may be full of shit, but listening to him beats the hell out of talking to your family.

But it's not all the news media's fault. When we do hear the facts, we have countless defenses against them. Picture the facts as zombies, and your brain as the house where the survivors are holed up.

For instance, the vast majority of us think the news media are politically biased. You could simply say, "Well, duh, that means they probably are biased." But the problem is that all of us think the media are biased against us, regardless of our political affiliations. It's called the hostile media effect -- if you are passionate about your beliefs, you'll always perceive the news as being skewed against you. Researchers can show two opposing groups the same news clip, and both will come away saying that the clip was horribly skewed against their side. And even weirder, when later given a quiz about the facts presented in the clip, the two groups actually remember it differently.

"And then Glenn Beck screamed for 19 straight minutes and took a giant shit on his desk."

Then we have the curse that is confirmation bias -- the horrible brain glitch that makes countless superstitions possible. This is when the brain latches onto and remembers pieces of information that confirm what we believe but dismisses those that don't. The news media can dutifully report 10 straight studies that prove global warming, but then when the 11th casts some doubt, the skeptic can say, "See! I told you the scientists think it's bullshit!"

They've even done studies where a mixture of liberals and conservatives were presented with intentionally incorrect reports about hot-button issues (tax cuts, Iraq). When presented with authoritative corrections -- hard, inarguable evidence -- correcting the inaccuracies, the subjects continued to stick by the incorrect information if it agreed with their point of view. Nothing could change their minds. "What? Reality doesn't conform to my opinion? Shoot it in the head! Board the windows!"

"You'd best take them scientific studies back where ya' found 'em."

OK, so why can't people get their information from the experts? You know, the pundits! They have to be better than the news, right?

On some level, you probably guessed that professional "shout political things angrily at the camera" guys like Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck are, on some level, full of shit. But a statistical analysis on just how full of shit they are found results that were downright startling.

Punditry is all about predictions -- claiming boldly that if ___________ comes to power, the economy will be in ruins within a year, or if ___________ legislation passes, the nation will turn into a fascist nightmare (or a lawless orgy, or whatever). A 20-year study of pundits and their prognostications found that they performed significantly worse than, say, a monkey making political predictions by throwing its own feces at a chart. The hard-line partisan pundits were right a dismal 12 percent of the time.

The monkey had 19 percent accuracy -- 24 percent on the days he ate a lot of fiber.

But the really scary statistic is that the more famous a political pundit is, the worse his predictions are. There's a reason the Becks and Olbermanns of the world are the pundits everyone's familiar with: They're not giving us accurate predictions, but they are giving us predictions we like to hear, whether we care to admit it or not. Not just predictions we agree with, but bold, scary and outrageous predictions. They make for good entertainment.

The same study found that less-partisan pundits performed better (about as well as chance, aka the shit-tossing monkey). But these types also hedge their bets ("If X happens, America's economy might collapse, unless Z also happens, though I could be wrong"), which bores audiences to death. It's no surprise you don't find them at the top of the ratings.

Fair, well-reasoned political discourse doesn't show up well on a chalkboard.

No, we will only reward you for being full of shit. Are we starting to get a clearer picture of the voting public here? It's not what most people assume (aka, that everybody is just ignorant and obsessed with celebrity bullshit). There's an intentional bias toward bad information.

Why? Well ...