A primer Paul Waldman with a very helpful reminder: Like many billionaires, Elon Musk apparently sees himself as a genius not only in areas where he has real experience but in all things, including politics and government. Which is why he tweeted this about the omnibus spending bill Congress passed last month: This is a common type of misinformation, one that swirled about with particular intensity regarding the omnibus bill. Not that Musk doesn’t believe it; I’m sure he does. His tweet shows how easy it is to be seduced by ideas that have intuitive appeal but are completely wrong. Let’s begin with Musk’s assertion and work our way through some other widespread but pernicious ideas about how politics works: “If members of Congress read bills before voting on them, legislation would be better.” How could anyone oppose that? But the truth is that most legislators usually don’t read the text —and that’s fine. It isn’t because they’re lazy. It’s because legislation involves a specialized type of language, written by experts for purposes that have nothing to do with understanding and wise decision-making. Members should know exactly what they’re voting on, but the text of bills is only tangentially related to that goal. The omnibus bill runs more than 4,000 pages, because it’s funding our extraordinarily complex government, which does all kinds of things we want it to do, and it is written in arcane legislative language. I don’t care much whether my senators pored over the section on rural electrification…