Video of the day -- political ads

Bill Maher brings us a collection of hilariously stupid political ad clips.  Of course I know that politics these days tends to operate by clichés, slogans, gimmicks, and demonization of opponents, but since I don't watch TV and practically never watch YouTube without an ad blocker, I almost never see political ads, and didn't realize they were this bad.  I'm sure Maher has chosen the (entertainingly) worst ones available, but still, this is what politicians and their consultants apparently believe will sway voters.  Is it any wonder so many people are just tuning politics out?

I do have one bone to pick with Maher here.  The question-and-answer series starting at 0:57 does offer some truly idiotic responses, and we all know people like this exist, but I certainly don't believe that they're typical.  Here are the questions:

Who was the first person to land on the Sun?

What is the biggest city in the world?

If you were born in 2021, how old would you be?

What country is Venice located in?*

Where is queen Elizabeth from?

I don't believe most people would have any difficulty answering these questions, except for #2, and even there most people certainly know that Asia and Europe are not cities.  The interviewers doubtless talked to a great many people, then chose only the most amusingly dumb responses to actually include in their show.

So Maher overstates his case here.  The "I'm smart but the masses are stupid and easily misled" mentality is an enduring disease of the left (on the right it more often takes the form of "I'm smart but everyone who disagrees with me is stupid and easily misled", but it's the same principle), and is itself part of the problem.  The political ads Maher excerpts reflect not how dumb people are, but how dumb the political elites believe they are.  This is why polling consistently shows that most people are angry at politicians and hold them in low esteem.  They know the politicians are treating them like idiots, and they don't like it.

[*As reader SickoRicko pointed out, the interviewer actually stated the answer when asking the question -- "What country is Venice, Italy located in?"  To me this makes it seem all the more likely that those interviews were staged, not real -- unless the person asked didn't know that Italy is a country, which I suppose is possible.]