There is an assumption, probably particularly among those who cover the news and those who read it, that Donald Trump’s legal travails are common knowledge. We talk about things like the potential effects of a Trump conviction on the 2024 presidential election with the assumption that this would be an event that rose to the nation’s consciousness, triggering a response from both his supporters and detractors.
But this is a sort of vanity: Just because it is interesting to us certainly doesn’t mean it is interesting to others. Polling released by CNN on Thursday shows that only a quarter of voters seek out news about the campaign; a third pay little to no attention at all.
As it turns out, even major developments often fly under the average American’s radar. New polling conducted by YouGov shows that only a bit over half of the country on average is aware of the various legal challenges Trump faces. And among those Republicans on whose political support he depends? Consistently, only a minority say they are aware of his lawsuits and charges.
I don’t think y’all inside liberal spaces like lemmy and reddit are honestly aware of how politically ignorant most Americans are.
“How could they NOT know?! Head all up in Fox News and nothing else?!”
Couple of anecdotes, so take them as you will.
My wife is Filipina, been here 3-years. She didn’t think Trump was such a bad guy. All she knew was what her ex-husband told her.
We were at the Mexican restaurant the other day and the server saw a pic of Trump on my phone while I read CNN, wanted to engage me in a conversation about who I was voting for and clearly favored Trump. The man barely speaks English.
A year after Trump came into office my sister (62-yo at the time) only had a vague notion that he wasn’t a nice guy, not really on the up and up, but maybe the hate was just politics? If my sister got a robocall saying Biden ate a puppy, she would run right out and vote Trump.
Yes, these people are ignorant. But they’re not reading like you and I. We’re interested, engaged, or we wouldn’t be here, and you wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t.
Not even going to get into how the GOP is flooding the media and internet to make all this sound like white noise, “politics”. But these Trump voters are not all rabid lunatics. And don’t dare come in a space like this and say, “They actually have a point on this particular thing…” or “They’re wrong, but they believe this way because…” You will get shouted down and shut out.
If the Democrats don’t fight fire with fire, we’re fucked. No more “high road” bullshit. The GOP’s propaganda machine is winning, and no amount of gotchas or exposal of hypocrisy matters. We can no longer play fair, aspire to logic and reasoning. We have to fight dirty and WIN.
I can’t read all that, gimme a cat gif
If you play like them, you either lose, or become them.
I don’t buy into that. There’s a difference in pushing the bully back assertively without necessarily stooping to their level.
Nobody is advocating we attempt to cheat like Republicans, for instance (at least I hope that wasn’t what was meant by fighting dirty). Just stop coddling them and pretending they’re acting in good faith when clearly they are not. I’ve seen more of this assertiveness come out over the years from Democrats and it’s long past due and could be tripled easily.
Republicans lack a soul and democrats lack a spine, that’s my take.
That has been true for so long, sadly.
I do. I just don’t excuse it. Some of it is willful. Some is negligent. Some is innocent to some degree. But I won’t excuse it away. The Internet put the world’s info at our fingertips. It’s about time people acted like it.