Most Americans are incredibly politically aware, but would not call their understanding political and don’t believe the government can resolve their problems.
They’re wrong about the former and right about the latter.
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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The media and social media are geared towards reinforcing tribalism. You have to pick a team and anyone on the other team is your enemy. It works well as a means of driving engagement and making money at the expense of having an electorate that is informed.
It reminds me of the town hall Bernie Sanders did on Fox News a few years ago. If you strip away the partisan blinkers and have a debate based on facts, specific policy points, and focusing on trying to improve people's lives instead of scoring cheap points then more people agree than disagree, regardless of political affiliation.
I guess the question is, "who benefits from a divided electorate?"
Lots of great answers here.
I think one under mentioned cause is the effect of social media algorithms.
All major social media platforms use machine learning algorithms decide what to show in your feed. The algorithms are programmed to show you the things that have historically kept you on the site longer.
It’s human nature to upvote/read/support/engage with the things that agree with our world views, and downvote/dismiss/disengage/discredit the things that disagree with our worldview.
These two facts combined result in you seeing more of the content that aligns with your worldview, and more of the content from people who share your worldview. We’re all funnelled into communities of like minded individuals that repeat what we already believe, reinforcing whatever that is regardless of how factually correct it might be.
Dissenting information that might cause you to reconsider your position or become more politically aware is automatically filtered out.
And it’s not just social media either, even the algorithms behind search engines display this behaviour.
Long before social media existed, Google was tailoring search results to match the things you tend to click on. If you searched for news and typically clicked on the headlines biased towards one side or the other Google would start ranking site with that bias higher.
This wasn’t intentional (at least not originally) it was just a side effect of the algorithm, trying to figure out what you were most likely looking for.
For someone who, for example, believes the Earth is flat. If they were to type “is the Earth flat?” Into a search engine. They are much more likely to get results that “prove” the Earth is flat, then a person who believes the Earth is round, because the algorithm knows that they tend to click on articles that “confirm” the earth is flat.
Algorithms used by social media and search engines today, make it genuinely difficult to maintain a balanced worldview and find unbiased answers to any question. They are all designed to keep you engaged, And it is human nature to engage more with the things we agree with, regardless of truth.
Can you explain what you mean by "politically unaware"?
The clear evidence of human ignorance and irrationality in the political arena poses a serious challenge to the popular wisdom. Lacking awareness of basic facts of their political systems, to say nothing of the more sophisticated knowledge that would be needed to reliably resolve controversial political issues, most citizens can do no more than guess when they enter the voting booth. . . . [T]he attempt to influence public policy through such arbitrary guesses is unjust and socially irresponsible.
Dayum.
This is one of those, “Tell us what you really think Michael” moments.
Interesting article. I would agree that most Americans are politically unaware per that article, because most Americans aren't economists or historians. It was definitely an interesting read, but what I really noticed is that the article failed to compare American political unawareness to a global baseline, or at least provide some comparable country's numbers, like England, France, Russia, China, Australia, Mexico and Canada?
Makes me wonder if I could pass the US citizenship test...
Edit: 95% on a practice test...
There are practice tests you can take . I bet you can pass it.
Why did the United States enter the Vietnam War?
Not the easiest kind of question to answer with multiple choice...
That was my thought too.
Is it money, it’s always money 💰
Passed that one. It was a little harder than the practice test, but I think it's about a middle-school level difficulty.
Welcome to America! 🇺🇸
Born here, stuck here.
Anyway, how well do you think American political awareness compares to political awareness of other countries? I honestly haven't looked yet.
Probably similar to other countries, but the stakes are so much higher because of the $2 billion military budget.
Do you have stats do back that up, though? Like actual data that says people in other countries are less politically ignorant than americans?
Brexit?
Your link just gives information about political awareness in America, there is nowhere anywhere that compares them to any other country like I asked for.
P.s. Trump lost the popular vote.
The question doesn’t compare Americans to other countries. I found some more interesting stats. That seems like a good question to post to /asklemmy.
I definitely specified in my question for a comparison to other countries. You replied to my comment with an irrelevant link. And then now you've given me a second irrelevant link. If you can't answer my question, then stop trying.
Saying "americans are so politically unaware!" Implies Americans alone are unique in being politically unaware. I am looking for actual data that shows specifically americans are less politically aware than the citizens in other countries are about their own countries politics. Showing me information about how bad Americans are at civics tests is not needed here at all.
Do you have stats do back that up, though? Like actual data that says people in other countries are less politically ignorant than americans?
Ok so I study political science (second semester so not an expert at all) and last semester I had to research a lot about turnout rates for people in less fortunate situations. The answer is really simple actually. If people live in shit situations they don't trust the government and they start to not care. Education is worse when you don't have enough money. There is also a constant struggle to make politics feel closer to the people because that directly impacts if you will educate yourself and go participate. Unfortunately politics feels like it is either actively against you or at least doesn't do anything for you if you are at the bottom .One thing that might be important in the US is that slums decrease political awareness / willingness to vote because these people who are probably not going to care are surrounded by more people that don't care. So if noone around you says something good about the government you are going to hate it even more.
All of this leads to an underrepresentation of these groups which leads to their problems being overlooked or underestimated which leads to worse conditions which leads to less political activity which leads to less representation....its a cycle that makes millions of peoples lives worse every day. And at some point they just don't care about politics because politics seems to not care about them. None of my sources are in English so get bozoed I could be lying about all of this.
That makes perfect sense. Good luck with the poly sci degree. What I took from this is material conditions effect voter turnout, which in turn effects material conditions.
Because we don't teach people ANYTHING about the political or legal system here (and legal matters a lot, since it's intrinsically tied to how we make and enforce laws here).
For instance, just figuring out where to vote, when to vote, and what you need to bring (and legally can't bring), varies WILDLY state to state. Real examples:
I lived in state A, where the primaries were just done with a ballot, you physically had to show up at a specific day and time to fill put in person
Moved to state B, where the primaries were at a different time and were done as a caucus. Meaning I had to physically go and stand there as my body was my vote. They were unprepared for voter turnout and it took 6 hours to vote. There were almost no chairs. Handicapped people, elderly people, and people who had to work, left. Like they just couldn't vote. It was horrible to witness. That's our rights being denied.
And also at state B, you had to be registered in advance and they needed to have record of it. If there was some weird error where you weren't on the list, tough.
Moved to state C, where everything is super easy and done by mail. Just mail in your ballot. No big.
We need to take kids on field trips to vote and teach them actually how to do it all. Including looking up smaller election dates. It's not actually that easy or that streamlined.
We need to take kids to town halls to show them how to observe public meetings. We need to show them how to run for office. The public deserves a clear and thorough education on this, as much as English or Math.
Here, we have mock elections in school, held with the same booths that the real elections are done. The kids make up political parties, then they go through the whole process, from getting their voter card (informing them about the vote and where the vote takes place or how to request vote-by-mail) to voting to counting and having results.
You don't do this in the US?
They did it in Arizona, but Republicans put a stop to it as too many kids were bringing their parents to vote.
I tried to research this, but Google sucks. I believe it happened and wanted to read about it. It sounds hilarious.
There is something called student government but it doesn't actually mimic what happens in each kid's district. They do not make up parties. They mainly just vote for class president, secretary, and treasurer with a show of hands. Sometimes a ballot. That's it.
They do not do any of the rest here. I'm being VERY sincere when I emphatically say most states do NOT teach the public ANYTHING that will give them legal or political power including how to vote. And some states make it very hard to vote.
This here is not about electing a student or class speaker (which is done way simpler). This is about learning politics.
Yes, unfortunately that's not a priority in the US. You know what is though? Making sure we are automatically enrolled in the draft, and that we take our ASVAB (military test) in high school. And of course, every high schooler knows how to enlist in the military and all the amazing benefits they could get.
Really? I didn't know anyone during high school that would've known how to enlist / benefits. It really depended on whatever anyone was interested in, what people knew about. I grew up in New York City.
We had recruiters come to my school at least once a year to give talks if not more often, so ymmv
America is the size of Europe, if you are English would you know what the current political discourse is in the Netherlands? Same kinda thing with something like North Carolina and Oregon very very far apart
"I don't live in a swing state so my vote does not matter anyways".
I am not a US citizen, that is just something I picked up from a random interview of a non-voter a while ago. I don't know if that is a common opinion, but it made sense to me in explaining political disinterest.
It has to do with the electoral college and how it limits voting power. So it contributes to political disinterest.
Corrupt plutocracy of a government removed the law that prevented mass ownership of news and media outlets. It consolidated everything into just a handful of media outlets that talk to the nation.
That, along with complete over saturation. A person trying to sort through a huge country comprised of their city government, plus their county, plus state, plus national level politics across a nation that's 8,000,000 square kilometers (not including Alaska and Hawaii) is just too much for most people to decipher and sort through.
It's even harder to mass protest here. It's not like everyone can drive inside of less than two hours away and show up in London or something. Getting to our capital to protest could be quite literally a 40 hour drive away.
That last part is particularly noteworthy. If I’m in the UK, I can make it to London in 8 hours pretty much regardless of where I am. That’s less than a full work day of driving. Many Americans have done that to visit family.
If I’m in France, I’m never more than 9 hours away from Paris. Again, many Americans have done a drive like that just to go on holiday.
If I’m in Newport Oregon, it’ll take 43 hours of driving (and crossing two full mountain ranges) to reach Washington DC. That’s a full work week of driving, just to reach the capitol.
So most Americans protest locally if they’re able. But that’s far less effective, because it splits the protests apart and makes them easier to ignore or break. Americans can’t go full “light Paris on fire for a full month because the retirement age is getting raised” because there aren’t enough protestors near the capitol to do that. The small protests that do start almost unanimously get broken up by cops as quickly as they started.
Any excuse huh? You have roughly the equivalent of the entire population of France living within a four hour drive of Washington DC, but
There aren’t enough protestors near the capitol to do that
There aren't enough people who would actually stand up for themselves, and in particular , others, is what you actually mean
There aren't enough people who would actually stand up for themselves, and in particular , others, is what you actually mean
So, protestors?
The average American has been convinced that when they are done being a worker for the day, they become something "better" and more important... the consumer. The consumer has no needs other than consumption. The consumer has no wants other than consumption. Their fellows economically simply become their servants as that is the illusion created by the culture of consumption.
Look at most folks making less than $100k/year and who are voting Republican. Ask them why they are voting and they will give you a myriad of reasons, but (in my experience) it mostly boils down to "they're hurting the other team and I want to be part of the winning team." Some liberals will give you the same type of response, but it's less common (or less enthusiastically so maybe). It's less that our electorate has been dulled to political activity and more that politics has been turned into a participation sport with teams, branding, and merchandise.
In my experience, the greatest example of this are the folks who've been completely demoralized saying "both sides are the same." It is true that both the Republicans and Democrats are the same... if the only way politics affects you is economically (or if you can convince yourself that that is the case). It's not the politicians or even the parties that are hurting the average American, it's the Consumer Capitalism all sides of our politics back that's hurting us. Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you a fairytale like "USSR was good actually" or "PRC is good actually." Just as America and it's systems have problems, those countries and their systems had/have their own problems.
Being the core of the post-WWII Western hegemony, American politics has problems that are uniquely it's own; the old adage of "there are no poor Americans, only temporarily embarrassed millionaires" sadly holds true. It affects every level of our politics, culture, and society to the point where no one needs to propagandize to that effect... it's merely self-reinforces at this point. You work doubles at the Walmart to feed your family and to afford your cell phone plan because you're just one magic algorithm lift away from TikTok stardom... it'll happen -any day now- why worry about politics?
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