Ilya Somin on Democracy and Political Ignorance

The second edition of Ilya Somin’s Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter could not have arrived at a better time. Most of us can sense something wrong with our democracy, but the source of our problems is often overlooked in the face of the symptoms: botched wars, corruption, and political parties that fail to deliver decent, principled candidates. Somin, a Law Professor at George Mason University and contributor to the Washington Post's Volokh Conspiracy blog, asks us to consider that the issue may a bit closer to home. Might the problem reside partly in our own ignorance, and the reasonable decision of a majority of voters to live their lives rather than obsess about an unaccountable central government? Somin is not taking aim at “stupid voters” or blaming them for the problems of society, but proposing alternative mechanisms for improving governance that depend less on a perfectly informed citizenry. He joins Bob to explore more realistic correctives to the slide towards idiocracy, including a new spin on federalism in the form of "foot voting."