It’s intriguing that at election time our thinking tends to get sloppy. Not that the season is uncharacteristic of any other time of the year.

No. As a species, we are characterized by behaviors presented from well-documented illusory thoughts about our surroundings and each other. Election time just amplifies this phenomenon in an extremely in-your-face way. Despite the fact that the vast majority of people in the U.S. don’t vote, the coverage and level of discussion would have one believe politics is a worthwhile investment of our time and energy.

Yet the lack of interest suggests quite the opposite, that in fact political issues have a far lesser impact, real or imagined, on the average person to the point that the incentive to be informed of “the issues” (apparently there are some issues worthy of being THE issues) simply isn’t there. And if civic responsibility, such as fulfilling our rights our ancestors fought for, were enough, then surely voter turnout would reflect this as a widely accepted level of importance.

It doesn’t.

In this way, political pundits, especially the self-anointed ones (i.e., the vast array of bloggers cum policy experts), play the role of pseudo magicians. Magicians capitalize on our cognitive distortions using things like sleight of hand. Similarly, political pundits capitalize on our cognitive vices and distortions by preying on our volatile assumptions and passions. They’re often quite successful.

There’s a conundrum, though. The hierarchy of credible information ranks things like radio talk shows near the bottom while peer-reviewed research journals rank near the top. Blogging, then, would likely fall next to radio talk shows, probably under mainstream journalism outlets — newspapers and TV news. Journalism has in theory a system of checks and balances in play. Peer-reviewed research has a high degree of checks and balances. Blogging, like radio talk shows and those pedantic cable news show hosts, has little to none aside from potential reader/listener feedback. Commentators strongly wedded to their positions, however, often shun or ignore contrary, even if credible, information.

So when the commentators scream participation and involvement into the political process — and, with a high amount of regularity, fervent adherence to sides and positions — another part of the story is that these clamoring voices are seeking validation for stances created out of their own cognitive biases.

There’s silver lining, though, in the fact that most people are either too preoccupied, or don’t care enough, to provide this validitation via participation. On occasion there’s something to be said for the wisdom of crowds. Perhaps the masses are saying they refuse to be hoodwinked.