Yeah, it's a consistent finding that opposition to social programs is largely driven by propaganda. Name the programs, it's "rah, wasteful, cut it!" Talk about

Yeah, it's a consistent finding that opposition to social programs is largely driven by propaganda. Name the programs, it's "rah, wasteful, cut it!" Talk about what it does, costs, actual e.g. overhead and fraud rates, without naming it, and people are like "that's great! We should use that instead of the wasteful, useless, fraud-filled [name of program you just described]!" Shit, last I checked IIRC most people don't even understand how marginal tax rates work, which is something that directly affects most of them, is relevant every single year, and that is pretty easy to understand. It's a miracle our democracy works even as well as it does. But, these results shouldn't be surprising, when you think about it—the average Christian, for example, hardly knows a thing about the belief system they claim holds the key to eternal life(!!!), which you'd think they might take super seriously and study with fervor, but most apparently do not. Why would we expect people to understand government any better than that?