In the early years of the U.S. republic, the politicians were people of stature and intellect. They were people like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin. Of course, at that time, only land-owners, educated people and men could vote. But that is not true anymore- at least in theory. As a result, now we get the likes of the Bushes, Richard Nixon, the Clintons, a do-nothing Congress controlled by special interests, and a dwindling middle class.
In the U.S. the reputation of politicians is extremely poor. A recent 2015 poll indicated that the approval of the Republican dominated Congress is at 19%. In fairness, this statistic is largely the results of the politicians own making. In a "what me worry" congressional attitude, the same politicians who shut down the U.S. government and had an approval rating of 14%, was re-elected.
Politician enact bad and/or self-serving policies. By and large, they are terrible people. They are mostly weak, self-serving people who are not concerned about the public good and therefore, not fit for public office. Politicians promise improvements but they are obviously lying and we all know that is going to happen.
So, why do people bother to vote at all? Actually, they don't. The United States has one of the lowest percentage turnouts for election in the industrial world. And, the turnout continues to decline especially among the young. The elections of 2014 had the lowest turnout since 1941, an election that took place during World War II when many men were in the military and could not vote.
However, not all politicians are idiots or self-serving, but plenty are. The U.S. seems particularly afflicted with them, for instance, Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, etc. And, the archetype of the idiot politician, George W. Bush, was the president for 8 years during which time he caused an economic crisis, went to war without any justification, and whose idiotic musings and statements caused laughter around the world.
So, what is going on here? Logically, you would want to have an intelligent compassionate person in office who understands the best approach and methods for running a country in the best possible way. But no, people seem drawn to demonstrations of questionable intellectual abilities. There are a wide variety of ideological, cultural, social, historical, financial and other factors involved, because politics incorporates all of these things, but there are also some known psychological processes that may contribute to this phenomenon.
Confident people are more convincing. This is has been demonstrated in many studies. Most studies focus on a courtroom setting, and suggest a confident witness is more convincing to a jury than a nervous, hesitant one (which obviously has worrying implications for justice), but it can be seen elsewhere. It is a phenomenon used-car salesmen and estate agents have exploited for decades. And, politicians are clearly aware of it so any politician that does not come across as self-assured, likeable, and confident does not win elections. So, confidence is important in politics even if you are a self-serving liar and hypocrite.
However, the Dunning-Kruger effect reveals that less-intelligent people are usually incredibly confident. More intelligent people, by contrast, are not. Self-appraisal is a useful metacognitive skill, but one that requires intelligence. If you do not have much of it, you do not consider yourself flawed or ignorant, because you do not have the ability to do so.
So, if you want an intrinsically confident person to publicly represent your political party, an intelligent person would be an extremely bad choice. However, this can backfire. Studies have shown that when very confident people are shown to be wrong or lying, they are then considered far less reliable or trustworthy than an non-confident person. This may explain the negative image of politics which is mostly a series of confident individuals making big promises and failing miserably to keep them. This turns people off not only concerning a specific politician but politics in general.
Add to that, effectively running a country of millions of people, all of whom have different requirements and demands, is an incredibly complicated job. There are many variables which need to be considered. Unfortunately, it is impossible to condense all this into a convenient sound-bite for use with the modern media and a population conditioned to not delving into complex matters, so personalities tend to come to the fore more often. And, the less intelligent and confident personalities are more successful in politics than intelligent, thoughtful and introspective people are.
Add to that, people are generally put off by intellectual and complex subjects and discussions. They may have no experience with the issue or may find it too complex and time-consuming. They want quick answers and simple solutions to complex issues and not ones which require a lot of thought, time and effort. However, politics, particularly in democracy, requires people to be involved. After all, the word "democracy" means "government by the people". Oops, I forgot. The U.S. is a republic and not a democracy!
Personality studies suggest that many people demonstrate goal orientation, a “disposition toward developing or demonstrating ability in achievement situations”. Feeling that you are actively influencing something (e.g. an election) is a powerful motivator, but if some knowledgeable type starts spouting big words about interest rates or health trust deficit management, this is going to alienate those who don’t follow or grasp such things. So if a confident person says there’s a simple solution or promises to make the big complicated thing go away, they’re going to seem far more appealing.
This is also demonstrated by Parkinson’s law of triviality which says that people will spend far more time and effort focusing on something trivial that they do understand than something complicated that they do not understand. The former offers far more scope for contribution and influence. And, people do not like to concentrate on complex issues. They tend to leave to the "experts", in this case, the politicians. But, they love trivial and non-complex issues like the latest fashion trends and the antics of movie stars and sports heroes. Therefore, less-intelligent people can only deal with big issues in brief snippets. Most of the American news outlets understand this. The news is kept brief and complex issues lack depth. They know that unless they do that, people will turn off the dial.
One of the often-cited qualities of George W Bush was that people felt they could “have a beer with him”. Therefore, they felt they could relate to him. By contrast, elitism is a negative quality. The idea that those running the country are outside the norms of society is alarming to many, hence the constant efforts by politicians to “fit in”. Ironically, most people do not feel that way about their doctors. They want them to be more intelligent than they are. They fail to realize that running a nation is also a life-and-death situation the ramifications of which can have long-lasting effects.
The majority of people are prone to numerous subconscious biases,prejudices, stereotypingand prefer their own “groups”. None of these things are particularly logical and invariably are not supported by actual evidence and reality, and people really don’t like being told things they don’t want to hear. People are also keenly aware of social status; we need to feel we are superior to others in some way to maintain our sense of self-worth. As a result, someone more intelligent saying complicated things that contain uncomfortable (but accurate) facts isn’t going to appeal to anyone, but someone demonstrably less-intelligent is not challenging to someone’s perceived social status, and if they’re going to say simple things that support inherent prejudices and deny uncomfortable facts, then so much the better.
It is an unfortunate situation, but it just seems to be the way people’s minds work. There’s a lot more to it than what’s mentioned here of course, but including that would make the whole thing more complicated, and that is no way to get people to like something, as should be obvious by now.