America: Home of the Disengaged

Winston Churchill once said that ”the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

One look at this chart and you begin to understand why. While the Supreme Court considers what could boil down to the bellwether of America’s future, Obamacare, Pew polling has released a poll asking “who is the Chief Justice of the United States?” The results are staggering – and depressing.

A majority of Americans flat out admit they don’t know who the Chief Justice of the United States is, and of those who think they know, 18% choose 3 men who have never been a Chief Justice – one of whom has never even been on the Supreme Court and serves as a Senator for the state of Nevada and another who has been dead for nearly 10 years.

I shouldn’t really be surprised given how disengaged most Americans are to politics, but John Roberts is the Chief Justice of the United States – and could hold that position until death. That’s kind of a big deal.

I can assure you, talking with my own generation, that the future isn’t any brighter. In fact, it’s probably more bleak. A republic can’t long survive without an engaged population. At least not one that is this disengaged.