When I taught English Composition in Community College, I spent a lot of time focusing on critical thinking and echo chambers. It was so interesting to see how students (people in general) could read the same article and take away different conclusions.
I had a class the day after the 2016 election. I thought long and hard what to present and finally settled on a Pew Research report that noted people with less education tend to vote against their personal interests. I passed out this report to the class and I praised them for being in college and encouraged them to continue, even when life gets in the way. I said their education was valuable not just for their own lives and their family, but that it was valuable to us as a country. Everything I said was an effort to be positive when inside I was absolutely devastated.
One week later, the department chair informed me that 3 students had reported me to the extension director. Apparently, they believed I had called them stupid or their parents stupid b/c they had voted from Trump. Yup.
So, to answer the question "do we have an informed electorate?" No. largely, we do not. Those who voted for T this time were largely not paying attention to the issues. As for trusting your gut, my father taught me - and I, in turn, used to say to students - you are not entitled to an opinion if you have not done your research. Same goes for voting, but here we are.
Your story makes me glad I'm not teaching any more! Our culture has changed so much since I went to school. Of course we should "challenge authority", including our government, but students perceiving insults where there are none and then reporting this to higher ups with no thought for the instructor is strange at best.
Arguably, the number of people who are truly informed about how and what the government is doing is very small. They work at financial institutions and spend long days absorbing information. Or they work in intelligence and have high security clearance etc
A larger echelon (but still a tiny minor or the population) spend their days as academics or journalists or just subject matter experts. They don't have the quality of information of those in the first category, but they have spent years learning a subject and can't devote most of their time to it.
Further down is the "consensus reality" level. This is where politics plays out on TV. This group is mostly college educated and have time to read for an hour or two each day. They are the people Ms. Richardson would consider informed. They know truisms like Inflation is caused by X. Gas prices are caused by X. A, B. and C are our enemies. They have lists of basic arguments and can support them by citing to online magazine articles.
Below that is the rabble who seem to vote irrationally.
Everyone in this model believes that the people below them are "uninformed".
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To believe in democracy, one has to sort of believe that voters' gut instincts when combined, are reliable.
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As to who could vote for Biden and Trump? I did. I've voted straight Blue as the lesser evil since 1988. Biden's State Department cause them to be the greater evil this time (they had been heading this way since 2009).
This time I voted Blue except for the top of the ticket. I thought about voting for Jill Stein, but as the Democrats insisted, it would be throwing away my vote, so I voted Trump. (GA)
How will it play ouy? The world is too complicated and complex for me to know. But that's true for most of us.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment, Flipshod (if I may refer to you that way:-)) You make several excellent points, particularly : "To believe in democracy, one has to sort of believe that voters' gut instincts when combined, are reliable.". I kinda agree with that as a big picture thought. Because this newsletter is about poverty in America, I can safely say that the Republican Party from top to bottom has no interest in helping the poor or the working poor or even the middle class, and it is proven in their platform and consistent policy choices. I also realize that those struggling to make ends meet, working every day and taking care of children have little time to read or even listen to the news. But at least once every four years, if you are going to cast a vote, you have a responsibility as a citizen in a representative democracy to make some effort to read or listen and think. I believe our public schools are failing us in the area of basic civics, history and critical thinking...or really, thinking of any kind.
I still can't understand anyone at all voting for a convicted felon, let alone all of his other legal misdeeds. His "Trump University" and "charitable' foundation were shut down by the courts and called fraudulent, and he and a few of his kin are barred from getting near a charitable foundation in New York again. And the grift continues. But you ignored all of this and so much more because of Biden's "State Department"? Hmmm. Biden wasn't the candidate. I'm just trying to learn... really.
Trump's con-man frauds, his money laundering, all of that. Those all went into my lesser evil calculation.
I'm over-educated. I was in Big Accounting on the finance team describing the too-big-to-fail bank stuff in the early 2000s when accounting failed in its basic purpose (Enron, Arthur Anderson, etc). I was there because I had been an English teacher and could explain shit away, and then I went and became a trial lawyer.
That was long ago, and I walked away from all of it and have lived near the Federal poverty line for about 10 years working low-level random jobs. (I have lifelines only as a last resort, mostly friendships, so I'm not a victim of poverty).
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One of the messages in the news analysis of the Trump win is that the working class feels talked down to.
Your response to me, if you are trying to learn, was pretty condescending.
If somone is on Substack and is reading and responding to your work (and believe me, I'm 100% in support of your cause), you can assume that they've considered the concensus narratives.
The issue for me is Ukraine. It's a long story about imperialism, and I grew up reading Gore Vidal as a kid in the 70s and 80s, so it's not a newfound fad idea for me.
Well over 50% of our voters are certainly not informed; I do not understand how you can live through one trump presidency and vote for that cretin for a second round in the Oval Office. He talks in sound bites and never thinks his "policies" through to a logical conclusion. But the great state of Texas is offering him a 1400 acre ranch where he can build migrant detention centers, before these "illegals" are to be shipped back to their respective countries. Never mind that we need these people in order for our economy to function. Once again his policies are short sighted and cruel. During his last term, trump separated children from their parents and many still have not been reunited.
Tariffs on goods from other countries? They will simply pass the costs onto American consumers.
This is just the tip of the iceberg because this wannabe Dicktator managed to convince over half the people that he is fit for office...trump could not be trusted to clean latrines. We are totally in for a nightmare 4 years.
Well, I agree... The bigger issue perhaps: this is how democracies fail. People don't think it is their duty in a representative democracy to be informed before they vote and "feel' it is just more comfortable to believe lies. I'll be writing another post about Fox "News", shortly.
When I taught English Composition in Community College, I spent a lot of time focusing on critical thinking and echo chambers. It was so interesting to see how students (people in general) could read the same article and take away different conclusions.
I had a class the day after the 2016 election. I thought long and hard what to present and finally settled on a Pew Research report that noted people with less education tend to vote against their personal interests. I passed out this report to the class and I praised them for being in college and encouraged them to continue, even when life gets in the way. I said their education was valuable not just for their own lives and their family, but that it was valuable to us as a country. Everything I said was an effort to be positive when inside I was absolutely devastated.
One week later, the department chair informed me that 3 students had reported me to the extension director. Apparently, they believed I had called them stupid or their parents stupid b/c they had voted from Trump. Yup.
So, to answer the question "do we have an informed electorate?" No. largely, we do not. Those who voted for T this time were largely not paying attention to the issues. As for trusting your gut, my father taught me - and I, in turn, used to say to students - you are not entitled to an opinion if you have not done your research. Same goes for voting, but here we are.
Your story makes me glad I'm not teaching any more! Our culture has changed so much since I went to school. Of course we should "challenge authority", including our government, but students perceiving insults where there are none and then reporting this to higher ups with no thought for the instructor is strange at best.
And...your father had wise words, didn't he?
Arguably, the number of people who are truly informed about how and what the government is doing is very small. They work at financial institutions and spend long days absorbing information. Or they work in intelligence and have high security clearance etc
A larger echelon (but still a tiny minor or the population) spend their days as academics or journalists or just subject matter experts. They don't have the quality of information of those in the first category, but they have spent years learning a subject and can't devote most of their time to it.
Further down is the "consensus reality" level. This is where politics plays out on TV. This group is mostly college educated and have time to read for an hour or two each day. They are the people Ms. Richardson would consider informed. They know truisms like Inflation is caused by X. Gas prices are caused by X. A, B. and C are our enemies. They have lists of basic arguments and can support them by citing to online magazine articles.
Below that is the rabble who seem to vote irrationally.
Everyone in this model believes that the people below them are "uninformed".
-----
To believe in democracy, one has to sort of believe that voters' gut instincts when combined, are reliable.
-----
As to who could vote for Biden and Trump? I did. I've voted straight Blue as the lesser evil since 1988. Biden's State Department cause them to be the greater evil this time (they had been heading this way since 2009).
This time I voted Blue except for the top of the ticket. I thought about voting for Jill Stein, but as the Democrats insisted, it would be throwing away my vote, so I voted Trump. (GA)
How will it play ouy? The world is too complicated and complex for me to know. But that's true for most of us.
*the second group is supposed to read *can* devote their days to it
Thanks for this thoughtful comment, Flipshod (if I may refer to you that way:-)) You make several excellent points, particularly : "To believe in democracy, one has to sort of believe that voters' gut instincts when combined, are reliable.". I kinda agree with that as a big picture thought. Because this newsletter is about poverty in America, I can safely say that the Republican Party from top to bottom has no interest in helping the poor or the working poor or even the middle class, and it is proven in their platform and consistent policy choices. I also realize that those struggling to make ends meet, working every day and taking care of children have little time to read or even listen to the news. But at least once every four years, if you are going to cast a vote, you have a responsibility as a citizen in a representative democracy to make some effort to read or listen and think. I believe our public schools are failing us in the area of basic civics, history and critical thinking...or really, thinking of any kind.
I still can't understand anyone at all voting for a convicted felon, let alone all of his other legal misdeeds. His "Trump University" and "charitable' foundation were shut down by the courts and called fraudulent, and he and a few of his kin are barred from getting near a charitable foundation in New York again. And the grift continues. But you ignored all of this and so much more because of Biden's "State Department"? Hmmm. Biden wasn't the candidate. I'm just trying to learn... really.
Trump's con-man frauds, his money laundering, all of that. Those all went into my lesser evil calculation.
I'm over-educated. I was in Big Accounting on the finance team describing the too-big-to-fail bank stuff in the early 2000s when accounting failed in its basic purpose (Enron, Arthur Anderson, etc). I was there because I had been an English teacher and could explain shit away, and then I went and became a trial lawyer.
That was long ago, and I walked away from all of it and have lived near the Federal poverty line for about 10 years working low-level random jobs. (I have lifelines only as a last resort, mostly friendships, so I'm not a victim of poverty).
---
One of the messages in the news analysis of the Trump win is that the working class feels talked down to.
Your response to me, if you are trying to learn, was pretty condescending.
If somone is on Substack and is reading and responding to your work (and believe me, I'm 100% in support of your cause), you can assume that they've considered the concensus narratives.
The issue for me is Ukraine. It's a long story about imperialism, and I grew up reading Gore Vidal as a kid in the 70s and 80s, so it's not a newfound fad idea for me.
Well over 50% of our voters are certainly not informed; I do not understand how you can live through one trump presidency and vote for that cretin for a second round in the Oval Office. He talks in sound bites and never thinks his "policies" through to a logical conclusion. But the great state of Texas is offering him a 1400 acre ranch where he can build migrant detention centers, before these "illegals" are to be shipped back to their respective countries. Never mind that we need these people in order for our economy to function. Once again his policies are short sighted and cruel. During his last term, trump separated children from their parents and many still have not been reunited.
Tariffs on goods from other countries? They will simply pass the costs onto American consumers.
This is just the tip of the iceberg because this wannabe Dicktator managed to convince over half the people that he is fit for office...trump could not be trusted to clean latrines. We are totally in for a nightmare 4 years.
Well, I agree... The bigger issue perhaps: this is how democracies fail. People don't think it is their duty in a representative democracy to be informed before they vote and "feel' it is just more comfortable to believe lies. I'll be writing another post about Fox "News", shortly.