ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explores claims of voter stupidity after unwelcome political events, such as Brexit or Donald Trump’s rise. She notes that one prevalent response evident in the established press and on social media is to lament the stupidity of people or to note how easily they are brainwashed and considers this in relation to false consciousness. The terms “false consciousness” and “ideology” are strongly and almost exclusively associated with one tradition: Marxism. The form of false consciousness that has generated the most interest, amongst Marxists and “critical theorists” as well as their detractors—and which is one of the more obvious candidates for the performance of an ideological function—is the phenomenon in which people allegedly fail to identify their own interests correctly. False consciousness, along with the associated theory of ideology, is widely regarded as an irredeemably problematic notion, on the grounds that to explain political events, or non-events, in terms of widespread delusion is “condescending”.
