David Moscrop on how to make wise voting decisions during political elections

David Moscrop is a political theorist and SSHRC postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Communication at the University of Ottawa. He studies democratic deliberation, political decision-making, and digital media, and is a contributing columnist for the Washington Post, and a writer for Maclean's Magazine He also provides regular political commentary for television and radio. His first book Too Dumb for Democracy? Why We Make Bad Political Decisions and How We Can Make Better Ones was published by Goose Lane Editions in March 2019.  We met at the University of Ottawa to discuss his book, just in time for Canada's 2019 Federal election. Among other things we talk about the story behind the book, making smart voting decisions, Twitter, literary agent Chris Bucci, CBC Ideas; good, rational, autonomous thinking; diverse, trusted news sources; emotional biases, negative political advertising, threats to democracy, partisanship, SNC Lavalin, Jody Wilson Raybould, the importance of investing time in order to understanding politics, bots, good citizenship, voting on principle versus strategically, party discipline, and adopting proportional representation. And for you non-political types: it's a lot more interesting than this makes it sound.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebibliofile.substack.com/subscribe