The most depressing article I have read in a while....

I can honestly say that this article is just downright disheartening.

The basic gist of the piece is that we are all screwed. Facts are actually more useful in cementing a disagreement then in resolving it:

The Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels analyzed survey data from the 1990's to prove this point. During the first term of Bill Clinton's presidency, the budget deficit declined by more than 90 percent. However, when Republican voters were asked in 1996 what happened to the deficit under Clinton, more than 55 percent said that it had increased. What's interesting about this data is that so-called "high-information" voters⎯these are the Republicans who read the newspaper, watch cable news and can identify their representatives in Congress⎯weren't better informed than "low-information" voters. According to Bartels, the reason knowing more about politics doesn't erase partisan bias is that voters tend to only assimilate those facts that confirm what they already believe. If a piece of information doesn't follow Republican talking points⎯and Clinton's deficit reduction didn't fit the "tax and spend liberal" stereotype⎯then the information is conveniently ignored. "Voters think that they're thinking," Bartels says, "but what they're really doing is inventing facts or ignoring facts so that they can rationalize decisions they've already made." Once we identify with a political party, the world is edited so that it fits with our ideology.

Now we all do this to a greater and lesser degree, but it is still disappointing. I understand the notion of cognitive dissonance, yet I am still susceptible to it. What is worse, in my estimation, would be this bit:

A striking recent example was a study done in the year 2000, led by James Kuklinski of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He led an influential experiment in which more than 1,000 Illinois residents were asked questions about welfare -- the percentage of the federal budget spent on welfare, the number of people enrolled in the program, the percentage of enrollees who are black, and the average payout. More than half indicated that they were confident that their answers were correct -- but in fact only 3 percent of the people got more than half of the questions right. Perhaps more disturbingly, the ones who were the most confident they were right were by and large the ones who knew the least about the topic. (Most of these participants expressed views that suggested a strong antiwelfare bias.)

Emphasis added mine. I have to agree with Mr. Lehrer it is a wonder Democracy works at all in this world, and I find his words on pundits to be even more appropriate.

I have had many political arguments over the years, and try as I might I am sure I have fallen prey to this from time to time. But in our current political environment this sort of research does not fill me with confidence. I understand that on some level the difficulty of bias and the limitations of our own perceptions (the desire to venerate those we agree with and denigrate those we don't). But shouldn't observable facts help combat that? At least that is what I have always consoled myself with. I have always believed that a well reasoned argument would be more convincing the demagoguery. If it is this frustrating to me I can only imagine how it must be for someone with actual policy expertise like Dr. Krugman, who must be about to pull their hair out over this stuff.

-Cheers