It's really hard not to get discouraged when you realize that all the anti-intellectual elitist talk has led us to this exact circumstance:

"Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era," a paper by Cornell's Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Institutions Suzanne Mettler features this remarkable chart showing that about half of American social program beneficiaries believe that they "have not used a government social program."

That's right...all those bonehead tea baggers going to rallies with signs that say "Keep the guvmint out of my Medicare" really *are* actually that ignorant.

The Mettler paper (.pdf) is equal parts fascinating and depressing. It confirms for me that the entire national dialog is being controlled by people who really understand very little and revel in their lack of comprehension.