The People Are Sovereign: Be Afraid

A universal franchise is, of course, a Good Thing. Yet, via Kieran Healy, comes news of this Pew finding:

There is little evidence that the recent news about Obama’s affiliation with the United Church of Christ has dispelled the impression that he is Muslim. While voters who heard “a lot” about Reverend Wright’s controversial sermons are more likely than those who have not to correctly identify Obama as a Christian, they are not substantially less likely to still believe that he is Muslim. Nearly one-in-ten (9%) of those who heard a lot about Wright still believe that Obama is Muslim.

No wonder politicians succumb to the temptation to treat the public with contempt. As Mencken said, Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard...