Rezzej also linked to this thread: Which is well worth re-reading, in my opinion. There's a lot of insight, but also a lot of self-assured incorrectness. Mea culpa. I sure didn't see that a country would vote "fuck you" for president, despite appearances to the contrary. The past three years have done a yeoman's job of making me stop overestimating the intelligence of the average voter. What was particularly striking to me is that a thousand days ago, the economy of the UK was the size of California and Washington put together. Today, the UK's economy is smaller than California's. Despite Brexit not actually happening yet the UK economy has contracted some 15% compared to its peers.
I need someone to run me some descriptive statistics in a study that can quantify average voter intelligence and then map it over the last 60 years. The past three years have done a yeoman's job of making me stop overestimating the intelligence of the average voter.
Well, uninformed voters is probably a better identification strategy for this (not serious) study. You could pull it off with survey data. From there the results that we’re all assuming would be found could make a great argument for representative democracy. Obviously the issue then extends to “welp, the dumb masses have elected a dumb representative.” Or worse, they’ve elected a smart one that can market to them. In reality, all a rational voter needs to do in the US is vote for a candidate whose agenda best reflects their interests. Somehow, that’s an impossible expectation for us.