Our political differences and culture wars are a big part of it. But I think it goes even further. How many times can a conservative encounter the low-information voters who don’t know who the vice president is, or watch the folks on the street get stumped by basic questions in Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” segments, and not lose some faith in the American people as a whole?

For starters, I really have only the vaguest idea who Jodi Arias is. According to cable news producers, this trial is a really, really, really big deal.

I remember reading the joke, “Far in the future, aliens will come and find the relics of our modern civilization and conclude that Kim Kardashian was our queen.” I really don’t understand why I’m supposed to care about this woman, and I don’t understand why it seems that I’m constantly being told things about her.

I suppose someone could argue that my interest in football or superhero movies or Star Wars is similarly frivolous. But a functioning constitutional Republic relies on an informed public to hold its government accountable, and it feels like large swaths of our public checked out of this whole process, finding any duties of citizenship to be a drag.