Is the average American voter smarter than 4 years ago?

[BigmanPigman]

No, really, are they?

8 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes
	2 (25%)
	No
	6 (75%)
	The same
	0 (0%)
	Other
	0 (0%)
	None of the above
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[LakeArenal]

1. I don't think smarter. I think more aware...

Of hate, bigotry, cheating, liars, Russia.

Not sure if they are less manipulate-able.

[elleng]

2. 'Smarter,' or 'better informed?'

We do have to get our angles/frames/language straight.

[empedocles]

3. Hoping here that the 'sub-average American voter' is smarter than 4 years ago.

[Andy823]

4. Lets hope

the ones who stayed home last time, 46%, because they thought there was no way in hell trump could get elected, have gotten smarter. I think they have.

[TheBlackAdder]

5. Can moronic Trump supporters learn and evolve past the tweenage years mentally? I doubt it.

[KentuckyWoman]

6. Insulting people's intelligence is fun.

Donnie the Dolt I've been calling him. And I am deliberately engaging in whimsy because the situation in the WH is so awful I can hardly face it anymore.... the levity is sanity.

A good many people who vote Republican, it has nothing to do with intelligence. A good many of them, their primary interest is oppressing women and keeping brown people someplace else. They aren't stupid. They are selfish fucking jackasses. Education doesn't fix that. Intelligence doesn't fix that. Smart or not... jackass is jackass.

I will say again, it has nothing to do with SMART.

[Skittles]

8. um, KentuckyWoman?

being racist and sexist means you really are not intelligent

[KentuckyWoman]

10. respectfully, I disagree

There are different kinds of smart. I have met people who will always be at the bottom rung economically because they somehow managed to get through high school without basic skills. For instance the ability to count out change for a dollar and knowing the difference between there, their and they're. Yet when the cheese hits the fan they show up with a casserole and a kind word. When someone is down, they notice and try to help.

On the flip side, I know someone with advanced degrees, world experiences, exposure to all sorts of cultures and people - and yet they get the vapers if someone brown shows up in the neighborhood without a leaf blower or a tool belt. Votes Republican exactly because they EARNED their wealth all by their lonesome with no help from anyone and by golly they don't want to provide even a penny toward anyone too lazy to be as special as they are. Total idiot... yet intelligent.

Everyone is unique. Yes I have been guilty of engaging in broad brushes, but I'd bet I was wrong every time.

[Skittles]

7. minus Trump Humpers, yes, I think so

anyone with critical thinking skills HAS to understand the importance of voting now

[Generic Brad]

9. More segmented

The internet has divided us into like minded communities. We’re not less intelligent. We’re just more divided.

[DFW]

11. I imagine the average IQ hasn't changed much

It boils down to people believing what they want to believe, and facts be damned. If they heard "it" on their favorite blog or cable channel, well then they'll get really creative finding ways to explain why what THEY want to believe is true, even if means that Dodo birds have been sighted in Yosemite, and accusations that Barack Obama was responsible for starting the Spanish Inquisition have been confirmed by The Hell and Polemico.

[NanceGreggs]

12. I don't know that I'd characterize it ...

… as “smarter”, but rather as more aware.

I think a lot of Trump voters have woken up to the fact that what they were promised and what they got are vastly different things, e.g. a middle-class tax cut that went to billionaires, a healthcare plan that’s ‘better and less expensive than Obamacare, and will cover everyone’, jobs in the coal industry coming back, etc.

Farmers are going under due to tariffs, wages are stagnant, and despite Trump’s bragging about the ‘great economy’, it hasn’t really improved for the middle-class.

You know how it is – if you want to lose Republican voters, just punch them in the pocketbook.

I think there are also a lot of former Trump supporters who are very uneasy about kids in cages, the endless lies, the damning info in the Mueller report, and so on.

If we had a do-over of 2016, there are Trumpsters who would switch their vote to HRC as a result of what they’ve seen and heard over the past two years. On the other hand, I can’t imagine a single Hillary supporter switching their vote to Trump.

[ProudLib72]

13. Nope. And I'll tell you why

The news cycle is waaaaay too short now, filled with one obscene Rump shenanigan after another. The focus is always on IT, always on the bad thing that IT is doing today. These are not "issues". These are distractions. After two years of this shit show, American voters have little substance to go on. Sure, you may say, "But the Mueller report and subsequent attempt to cover it up!" Well, yes, but you see the way the MSM has reported on it (for the most part) has simply caused more partisan division ("Barr says this, Rump says that, Nadler says another thing" ). At least, that's the way I see it.

[BigmanPigman]

14. I posted this poll for a selfish and personal reason...

I am scared that you are correct and we will have a redux of 2016. Then I saw Elizabeth Drew on Lawrence and I read her piece in the NY Times and am even more scared that you and I and the rest who voted "No" on this DU poll may be correct. I posted the clip of her under the Videos Forum and under her article in the Editorials Forum...

"The Danger in Not Impeaching Trump; It may be risky politically, but Congress has a responsibility to act."

Skip to 32:20.

[ProudLib72]

15. Let's sit on our collective hands and whimper

That whimper will be the "death throe" of democracy. No one will hear it.