Breyer Who? Two Thirds of Americans Cannot Name A Single Sitting Justice

They may be Supreme but they are also apparently Supremely forgettable. Two-thirds of Americans polled cannot name a single sitting Supreme Court justice. Of the relatively few who can remember a name it is that of the Chief Justice John Roberts. The least well known is Justice Stephen Breyer. Only one percent could remember them all.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas tied for second place with a measly sixteen percent.

Then follows Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg (13 percent), Sonia Sotomayor (13 percent), Anthony Kennedy (10 percent), Samuel Alito (5 percent), Elena Kagan (4 percent), and Stephen Breyer, (3 percent).

Of course, roughly half of people polled last year could not name a single GOP candidate for president. Forty one percent cannot name the current vice president of the United States.

We do even worse on international questions or trying to define the bill of rights.

There is a serious problem in this country, as I have previously discussed, with the lack of civics training in schools. It is a dangerous thing for citizens to be not just ignorant but detached from their political system. All governments love the uninformed and passive citizen but it makes for a dangerous void in accountability in this country.

Unfortunately, we are proving de Tocqueville correct in saying that “in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.

Source: ABA Journal