When Rulers Can’t Understand the Ruled

Johns Hopkins study finds significant gap in demographics, experience and partisanship between Washingtonians and the Americans they govern 

Anthony Freda Art

Activist Post

Johns Hopkins University political scientists wanted to know if America’s unelected officials have enough in common with the people they govern to understand them.

The answer: Not really.

Surveying 850 people who either work in government or directly with it, researchers found that the inside-the-Beltway crowd has very little in common with America at large. Washington insiders are more likely to be white. They are more educated. Their salaries are higher, they vote more and have more faith in the fairness of elections. They are probably Democrat and liberal. They more diligently follow the news. And they think the mechanizations of government couldn’t be easier to comprehend.

Jennifer Bachner and Benjamin Ginsberg asked hundreds of questions in 2013 of those who work in federal agencies, on Capitol Hill and in other Washington policy jobs. They presented some of their findings recently at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in a talk called The Civic Distance Between the Rulers and Ruled. Complete results of their research will be featured in their forthcoming book What the Government Thinks of the People.

Johns Hopkins: 'Magic Mushrooms' Help Longtime Addicts Quit Smoking

Psilocybin mushrooms

Activist Post

Johns Hopkins researchers report that a small number of longtime smokers who had failed many attempts to drop the habit did so after a carefully controlled and monitored use of psilocybin, the active hallucinogenic agent in so-called "magic mushrooms,” in the context of a cognitive behavioral therapy treatment program. 

The abstinence rate for study participants was 80 percent after six months, substantially higher than typical success rates in smoking cessation trials, says Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the corresponding author on the study.

Approximately 35 percent experience six-month success rates when taking varenicline, which is widely considered to be the most effective smoking cessation drug. Other treatments, including nicotine replacement and behavioral therapies, have success rates that are typically less than 30 percent, Johnson adds.