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It's interesting to see the degree that opinions have changed in time, the contrarian relationship between economic expectations and economic performance, and other fear mongering issues that don't tangibly affect people's quality of life. For the latter, these include National Security, Terrorism, Immigration, Government Satisfaction, Budget, ... really most of this stuff. I wonder how the graph would look if the same question was posed to a set of 'experts'. Say a set of economists at top business schools, or really a spattering of economists from reputable universities. My suspicion is the issues would suddenly become much more consistent. Especially with a focus on institutions, economic growth, tangible quality of life metrics, and efficacy of government redistribution programs among others 'real' measures. It's not to say that fears over government functioning, or the economy, or morals are irrelevant - these factors shape how we perceive the world and subsequently how we feel. This graph displays how resilient we are to these emotionally charged 'issues'. The average poll respondent will likely continue following the general sentiment from media, conversations, etc. Meanwhile, tangible issues will continue to be acknowledged by a very small sliver of the population. These sorts of results make me cynical of voting in general. Our current system with the electoral college, special interests, lobbying, advertisements etc. is already a clusterfuck. Ignoring experts opinions and focusing on emotionally charged issues is probably worse off for the country as a whole. I, for one, am glad that voter preferences currently represent the preferences of elites when it comes to contentious issues. (see Martin Giles' Affluence and Influence). Our 'every person gets an equivalent vote regardless of education for the minority that actually votes across varying demographics with messed up electoral colleges and voting districts and advertising influences' ... system seems inefficient to me. While a dystopian future of 'educated elites' controlling voting isn't the answer, neither is an equivalent, electoral college based system. It encourages appealing to the lowest common denominator, and a whole lot of people are unintentionally voting against their own interests. |