Politically Ignorant, Deliberately

Unless the playoffs include a local team, I don't start following the major sports until the final rounds, just before the championship game(s).

Similarly I haven't been paying attention to the preparation for the Democratic candidates' debates. This studied non-interest saves me a lot of time; I don't have to learn their political positions, much less their personal histories, until the primaries winnow the field down to 3 or 4.

How many faces can you recognize without Googling their names and images? (The NY Times helpfully appears to be running them in alphabetical order.)

Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren should be known to even casual observers. Senators Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar may be remembered from the Kavanaugh hearings. Senator Cory Booker became famous as the outspoken mayor of Newark, NJ, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend was on the cover of Time. I'm also aware of Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, my home state.

On the Republican side are President Trump, of course, and William Weld, former governor of Massachusetts. (Bill Weld was popular 20 years ago as a Republican who could command the respect and votes of Democrats.)

Beyond those names I'm drawing a blank and choose to remain ignorant. At my age one has to be careful what one puts in the attic:

(Image from boingboing.net)

I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
------Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle)