No Wonder Voters Are So Pessimistic

Scott Rasmussen makes a stunning finding: fewer than one-half of American voters know that the U.S. has the world’s largest economy. Forty five percent say we do; 34 percent say we don’t; 21 percent admit they don’t know.
This is remarkable for two reasons. First, we aren’t talking about an obscure piece of data here. Who has the world’s largest GDP is a pretty basic fact. Second, it isn’t close. Our economy is well over twice as large as the second-place economy, China’s; on a per-capita basis it would be more like seven or eight times as large.
I’m all in favor of voters having a healthy dose of concern about our current economic and fiscal issues, but it is hard to see how this kind of disconnect from reality can be helpful.