Donald Trump is a demagogue and a proud ignoramus. Knowing nothing of the detail of policy, even in its broadest take, would be bad enough. But Trump takes it that one step further by making up facts on the spot to suit the mood of whatever crowd he currently faces.

If you’ve wondered how a demagogue like Donald Trump could ever be appealing to voters, you probably have not spent enough time wading through the data on just how little voters themselves know – really about anything.

Each voter faces the same sad calculus. Any time spent researching candidates, policies, or parties in order to cast a more informed vote is an hour that could be better spent doing, well, anything else.

Meanwhile, the same voter could spend a great deal of time and effort in choosing among car options when, in the grand scheme of things, who becomes President matters a great deal more than whether one buys a Honda or a Toyota.

The key difference is that a person as a shopper takes home the car she decides on, while the same person as a voter marks an X on a ballot and goes home – knowing that that one vote does nothing to affect the outcome.

And when too many people act that way, Donald Trump wins the GOP nomination.

Ilya Somin, Professor of Law at George Mason University, takes on the problem in his recent book Democracy and Political Ignorance; a second edition is forthcoming this June. And the compilation of facts is staggering. Voters routinely overestimate the fraction of the government budget devoted to foreign aid while underestimating the proportion of the budget to Medicare, Medicaid and social security. They also know little about the basic structure of government. In 2006, only 42 percent of voters could name the three branches of the American government.

Once you know a bit about how little voters do know, you start being amazed that government works as well as it does.

And before Kiwis get too smug, note that New Zealanders do not fare much better in similar surveys.

Next Wednesday, 11 May, Ilya Somin will be speaking at the University of Victoria at Wellington. He’ll walk us through the sad facts about voter knowledge, and the implications of it. I hope you’ll join us at 12:30 in GBLT4 for a bit of enlightenment.