Reddit reviews Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter

Do you have examples? Because I know of quite a few critiques along that vein coming from conservative sources:

• Ben Domenech at The Federalist complains that Trump's populism is tapping into "White Identity Politics" rather than conservative principles, and that it's bad for the Republican Party.
  
• Libertarian Ilya Somin has been attacking Trump for a while, attributing his success to widespread ignorance (which is kinda a broader topic in itself that Somin is obsessed with and argues is justification for limited government)
  
• William Galson at the WSJ argues that Trump's appeal can be attributed to the GOP's alienation of the less educated white working class, and highlights their anti-trade, anti-immigration beliefs (which in a place like the WSJ, is politely saying that they're misinformed) as an example.
  
  Part of it, of course, is that we have poll data that shows that Trump supporters are less educated than, say, Rubio supporters. So people on the left and the right start from that premise, and run with the narrative that fits their views best.

I certainly agree that (rational) political ignorance is a serious problem and a huge contributing factor to the current state of affairs. I was persuaded of that even before 2016, thanks in large part to the work of Ilya Somin (whose politics I don't share otherwise).

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There's no viable alternative, though, at least not one I'm aware of. And if we are going to operate as a representative democracy, then attempting to reduce the franchise is unjust.

There's in interesting concept called 'rational ignorance' which in a political context means that for most people the cost of educating themselves about political matters outweights the potential value they might get from making more informed decisions. (By voting or campaigning for issues that are more in their interest.)

If political ignorance really is rational then it's not so much a flaw in the political system as a fact about human nature that any political system has to work around.

The volokh conspiracy has written about the topic quite a bit and one of their contributors actually wrote an entire book on it.

If you would like a good discussion of this topic generally, Ilya Somin (a law professor and very staunch Libertarian) has good book discussing why smaller governments are always better:

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Political-Ignorance-Smaller-Government/dp/0804786615/ref=la_B000AP9XW6_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405799469&sr=1-2

Note that "small" here refers literally to the size of the governed territory, not a metaphor for a limited Federal government.

You left out he's a republican who champions smaller government. Here's a link to one of his books

https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Political-Ignorance-Smaller-Government/dp/0804786615?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Yeah, it's just in my head that the average voter is so on top of things. They pour over statistics and spreadsheets day and night trying to formulate their opinion. They totally care more about public policy than their favorite TV show or that co-worker they want to ask out on a date.

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Political-Ignorance-Smaller-Government/dp/0804786615/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1463629617&sr=8-4&keywords=somin