Peter Levine writes about the fundamental lack of understanding of basic democratic functions on the part of way too many Americans.
All else being equal, it is a Bad Thing that people don't understand the issue that is likely to consume their Senate for a month or more. It means, among other things, that strongly ideological interest groups
enjoy more power than they would if everyone were following the issue.
People are certainly capable of understanding a filibuster. I'm always amazed at how many people can write software, play an instrument and understand music theory, or organize complex financial transactions--all problems that I find somewhat intimidating but that are harder to grasp than a filibuster.
I don't think they want to very much. We have so many choices, so many sources of interest and entertainment, that figuring our the importance of the filibuster ranks with, say, weeding or balancing a checkbook. But Levine has the answer:
If people worked in local politics (and at least twice as many held local office 50 years ago as today), then they would understand legislative processes first-hand. They would also have identities as active citizens that would motivate them to follow national news. My friend and co-editor John Gastil has found that members of juries--with the exception of juries that deadlock--are considerably more likely than comparable people to vote in elections. At first, this finding doesn't seem to make much sense: jury service is profoundly different from voting. The only reasonable explanation is that "citizenship" is one thing in people's minds. If they become active citizens in one domain, they behave that way in others, too.
Big "if"!
