People Don’t Know Much

I saw a lot of tweeting yesterday about the vast level of voter confusion as to which president signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program into law, but Annie Lowrey’s post put it in the broader context of things voters don’t know about:

I think this fits into, and helps explain, the narrative around the overwhelming political importance of objective economic conditions. People just don’t know that much about what’s actually happening in Washington, up to and including massive ignorance about the identity of the members of the Supreme Court and confusion as to which president is which. By contrast, people are pretty well-informed about their own standard of living, that of their friends and family, and the basic situation in their community.