Geppetto had it easy. American voters, not so much. At least when Pinocchio lied his nose got bigger; voters don’t get the advantage of an obvious tell.

No matter what you think about the Affordable Care Act, known commonly as Obamacare, it takes a special brand of naivety to think those who wanted to pass it were honest.

From Nancy Peloci’s “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” to President Barack Obama’s “If you like your health care plan you can keep your health care plan,” the entire law was overloaded with what even the most apologetic person can call misrepresentations.

So when one of the architects of Obamacare was videotaped saying that the law passed essentially because American voters are stupid and did not know they were being lied to, it should have been just another day in paradise.

But conservatives have fought against this law with religious zeal, and to them, this was an answer to a prayer. They have accused President Obama of lying to voters for his signature accomplishment. They have tried to bury the bill with indignation.

It hasn’t worked, and the reason it hasn’t is because Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at MIT and adviser to Obama during the construction of Obamacare, was dead on — voters are stupid.

This isn’t some fantastic revelation that only the scholarly research of a brilliant MIT professor could uncover. Republicans and Democrats have each known this for decades, and have been extremely keen to capitalize on our collective futility.

During the Gruber tantrum, conservatives claimed they used the same tactics liberals used to pass the law. When a bill came up that would have curbed NSA surveillance, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said the NSA should keep its free reign to collect surveillance because of the war with ISIS.

He argued this was not the right time to “be tying our hands behind our backs,” claiming this would only make the situation worse.

Moreover, with the Senate voting on the Keystone XL pipeline, conservatives tried to convince us this would somehow be an economic steroid creating tens of thousands of long lasting jobs. Neither of these claims are true.

When Gen. Keith Alexander, former head of the NSA, was questioned by Congress, he was forced to admit that the NSA only helped prevent one or two terror plots.

Furthermore, three senators issued a brief to the Supreme Court informing it that in those two plots, law enforcement could have gotten the information elsewhere just as easily.

So in the same way the Obama administration lied to get Obamacare passed, Republicans lie for their legislative interests. Everyone does it, which is why Congress shares an approval rating with roaches.

They can get away with this because, exactly as Gruber says, voters are stupid. We consistently vote against our own interests, like voting to raise the minimum wage while electing senators who oppose it, because we have no idea what candidates stand for.

We would rather watch a Kardashian wedding than the State of the Union address. Until we care enough about our lives to learn about our own government, nothing will be fixed. Ignorance is a threat to democracy, and not even Geppetto can fix that kind of stupid.

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