My latest column is on a different kind of polarization: the widening gap between people who are obsessed with politics and people who are completely disengaged from it. In passing, I mention some data worth keeping in mind when we think about the amount of coverage and commentary about the flags hanging at Justice Alito’s homes:
In February, nearly two years after Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote to overrule Roe v. Wade, a poll found that two-thirds of Americans didn’t know enough to have an opinion of him. When asked to volunteer the name of a justice, any justice, most of us can’t do it. In another poll, in 2022, just under a quarter of those surveyed came up with “Clarence Thomas,” and he was the most well-known of the bunch.