David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

democracy

‘American Idol’ reveals more about our society than we’d like to admit

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What’s the most important and most talked-about election in the United States today? Although political candidates have their fans — and some people would say the presidential election gets the most attention — I’d say more people passionately care about voting for their favorites on American Idol. What’s more, the level of public discourse today has gotten so bad that the presidential campaigns might not do any better than American Idol at addressing things that matter.

In 2008, there were 132.6 million votes cast in the general election for president in the United States. Just last month, American Idol attracted 122.4 million votes one week. So while the presidential election is still barely in the lead, the gap is small and shrinking. What’s more, if you took everyone who voted at least once in a season of American Idol, I’m betting that total would be higher than the total who voted for president. (Yes, I’m ignoring the facts that people can vote more than once for American Idol and that there are no qualifications to vote. Still….)

The 2006 movie “Idiocracy” was a campy comedy exploring the notion that people are getting less and less intelligent. (See the trailer here.) Although the movie wasn’t a cinematic masterpiece — and got only mildly positive reviews — I can’t be the first person to feel as though we’re getting closer every day to living in that world.

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I have no ‘duty’ to vote, even if I agree with you about freedom

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As most Americans gear up to pay attention to another presidential campaign season, I’m once again hearing an argument that’s been around for a long time. Does every U.S. citizen have a duty to vote?

It’s long been a staple of “good government types” that everyone has a responsibility to be an informed citizen and then to vote on election day. Newspaper editorialists who’ve run out of actual things to editorialize about are fond of writing a piece (right before election day) about the duty to vote. I seem to recall that I’ve written such editorials a time or two in the distant past when I was an editor, although I did once write a controversial column asking ignorant people not to vote. But that’s another story entirely.

The argument I’m hearing right now, though, is from freedom-loving people who argue that libertarians and others who desire freedom have a duty to go to the polls and vote for the candidate who they think is most likely to bring about liberty. Well-meaning liberty-lovers frequently insist that the rest of us have such a duty.

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Does the delusion that most people agree with us explain the appeal of majoritarian systems?

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I frequently hear people trying to support their opinions by claiming that “everybody” thinks the same thing they do about some issue. It doesn’t matter much what the issue is, because most people seem to believe that how they see the world is typical of how other normal, mainstream people see the same world.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the psychology behind this — and I’m trying to track down research that might address it — but right now, I’m thinking about the implications of it. If most people honestly believe that others share their general views, could this help explain why people are so supportive of majoritarian systems? Could it be that they have an unconscious belief that an honest vote will produce a result they’re going to like?

In 1969, U.S. President Richard Nixon was faced with very vocal and growing opposition to the war in Vietnam. He gave a famous speech in which he asked for support from the “great silent majority” who he thought agreed with him. Nixon’s approval rating had been hovering around 50 percent (and was 56 percent at the time of the speech) but after invoking the notion that most people agreed with him, his support immediately jumped to 68 percent. Since nothing else happened to explain the change, it seems reasonable to believe that people have a need to identify with the majority if a politician claiming something to be the majority position increases his approval rating by 12 points almost overnight.
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