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.
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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.
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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.
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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 think what you are describing is not a specifically American problem. In Germany, for example, the AfD, an extreme right-wing, openly fascist party, is unfortunately on the rise as well. This party uses almost exactly the same strategy as the conservatives in America - simplistic, often anecdotal explanations, false accusations, targeted disinformation, refusal to compromise on anything and so on. Unfortunately, this also works frighteningly well in many other countries. And the same problem seems to exist everywhere: People who are either hopelessly misinformed or not informed at all, or even unquestioningly and often downright sectarianly parroting what their leaders claim (plus those who are actually racists and fascists by conviction). I suspect that this is largely due to the fact that social media is the only source of information for many people today. The main problem with that imo is not only that social media logic favors offensive and particularly controversial content, but also that the owners of the largest platforms almost universally support authoritarian to fascist political currents because it is profitable for them. This is another reason why I think the mass demonstrations against fascism, racism and intolerance in Germany are quite important: they show people that there is still widespread rejection of these terrible ideas - and that seems essential to me, because social media easily gives a false impression of the “public opinion”. It certainly seems worth a try to me. That’s why I’m about to set off again to a demonstration against fascism. I recommend you Americans follow whether the IRL protests in Germany and elsewhere prove to be a suitable remedy to the general stupor in political debate. If so, this approach can easily be adopted in the US as well.
I really do love this take, but I have to ask. What does fighting dirty without becoming them look like?
If you could throw out an example that makes this work I’m all for it.
I just cannot stand the idea of obtaining votes through deceit.
I don’t think y’all inside liberal spaces like lemmy and reddit are honestly aware of how politically ignorant most Americans are.
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.
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.
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You’re talking about people who believe to their core that a fancy lad born to real estate wealth who revels in his class privilege to a cartoonish degree, to the point of having a reality show where the central conceit was “kiss my ass for half an hour because I’m so rich,” Represents their interests.
They are willfully, belligerently ignorant in order to protect their false beliefs. They have been trained to reject any and all information inconvenient to the positions of their tribe.
Donald Trump could literally rape a typical Republican’s mother in front of them while laughing about it and flipping them off, and their mind would either pretend it isn’t happening, or declare that Biden is doing it. They’ve fully embodied the Orwellian nightmare:
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
So we can confirm they are stupid and uninformed?
43% of Democrats believed he’d been charged with crimes they made up for the poll.
The point of the article is really about the fact that most people are just generally uninformed, especially Republicans about these criminal prosecutions.
The vast majority of Americans completely tune out news and politics, interject at get-togethers with some regurgitated shallow talking-points they overheard coworkers or news headlines say, then suddenly pay half attention like a month before the election.
This
Given all the legal trouble Trump and cohorts has been in, in the past 3+ years… its not a surprise people would think anything they hear is a new or existing charge.
Ask any random GOP what book they last read. There’s Your sign.
For all you Texas GOP’S, Guns and Ammo magazine is not a book.
That means nothing imo, last book I read was years ago and I’m in a field most consider to be for sharper folks. Software dev. The book was the last in the three body problem trilogy.
In a world where the Twilight series exists, I really hate people who use the act of reading books as some intelligence measure
I was at the gym the other day talking with a friend I see regularly. She says “I might not vote, I don’t like either of them”, I kept my mouth shut but I couldn’t stop thinking like holy shit lady one is wayyy worse than the other. I’ve seen it before where people aren’t aware the depth of Trump legal issues and general personality problems however i assumed it was because they only watched fox or something, but hearing it from her really threw me in for a loop. I cant believe I’m living in this reality
Trump may be way worse, but not liking either of them can be a perfectly rational, informed opinion.
Sure I get it, but by not voting still benefits Trump.
Or does it send a message to the DNC to propose better candidates.
You can say the same about the RNC especially since they are not the ones with an incumbent and are voting for someone that already lost and has a really bad history. But that’s all beside the point, the US democratic system is broken and that’s an entirely different discussion
Yes. Any Republicans who don’t like Trump as a candidate should also abstain from voting.
Would they? My gut says no.
And now we are back at the start. Voting Trump vs Biden, Trump is worse. At this point we are going in circles.
I don’t buy it. He talks about it himself nonstop. I’m pretty sure people just ignore it because they don’t care and they’re voting for him either way
You have to understand that conservative media right now barely features anything that Trump actually has said or done. It’s all made up bullshit and mythology about him and how great his is. My own mother consumes this media all the time and has told me that Trump looks healthier and stronger than ever. That’s what these people are being fed.
“Most Republicans aren’t aware…”
I don’t think it’s that they’re completely unaware, Trump talks about them all the time.
It’s that they buy the line that they’re politically motivated.
Well, Republicans are pathologically fucking stupid.
Aren’t aware, willfully ignorant: Same difference, right?
“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them” Thomas Jefferson
They’re too busy consuming media that tells them that he’s basically the second coming of Jesus.
Huh. Almost as if republicans have their heads all the way up their ass. Who’d have guessed that?
