Policy Prefs: I’m Right at the Peak of America’s Bell Curve. Where Are You?

The idea of democracy is to give the people what they want, right?

Ezra Klein points us to a great study by Ray LaRaja and Brian Schnaffer examining policy preferences by political donors (5% of the population) vs. non-donors (95%).

Here’s my rendition of the results:

Whose preferences would you say are embodied in our current government?

Non-donors as a group are pretty coherent, and seem to give a good representation of what Americans want.

Donors, perceived as an entity, not so much — the group is downright schizophrenic, in particular due to that anomalous bulge at the right. And that 5% or .5% determines what we get — not the 95%. (Money? Pernicious? Feh.)

Now: ask yourself where the self-professed liberals and conservatives that you know land on the left-hand graph.

Just sayin’.

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.