You’re not wrong about having the physical and temporal capacity to inform yourself regardless, but you’ve also got to have the mental and emotional capacity as well.
I’m sure you’re aware of how exhausting it is to live here, even just having nominal exposure to all the campaign ads and the outrage bait “news.” That’s before all the regular stress of living here with a family, all of your material conditions. Is my car gonna break down? If it does will I get fired? How can I afford my kids soccer cleats? Will the babysitter cancel on me for my extra shift?
If the only exposure you got for the election that you paid attention to because it was “entertainment” was a “funny” Joe Rogan clip your buddy sent you of the Trump interview it’d be real easy to be like “well, we made it through the first one, and at least he acknowledges that things are more expensive…”
Obviously if you’re tuned in, you know that’s a bullshit front. But if you don’t have the capacity to be tuned in because fucking everything is designed to stress you out and extract what little money you have… Well, here we are.
If the only exposure you got for the election that you paid attention to because it was “entertainment” was a “funny” Joe Rogan clip your buddy sent you of the Trump interview…
This right here is hitting on the real problem. People are fed bullshit from firehoses coming in all direction, so they feel like they are informed because of what they have passively taken in. It takes some real effort to step back and think “What if the things I’ve been hearing are not the full story?”, and even more effort to take the next step and actively seek out information that might challenge what you have already heard and internalized. We are ALL guilty of this to some degree.
But if you don’t have the capacity to be tuned in because fucking everything is designed to stress you out and extract what little money you have…
Precisely–it is 100% the point. If you are stressed out working 2 jobs and raising a kid, you are going to have a lot less energy to keep your bullshit detector running and the simple solutions to complex problems naturally sound more appealing.
I guess you’re right. It’s just so damn important to them and their families… I have been there, super exhausted from all that, but I knew the risk of not being informed about who I’m voting for. I guess it was enough for me to make sure I knew, but not for others.
You’re not wrong about having the physical and temporal capacity to inform yourself regardless, but you’ve also got to have the mental and emotional capacity as well.
I’m sure you’re aware of how exhausting it is to live here, even just having nominal exposure to all the campaign ads and the outrage bait “news.” That’s before all the regular stress of living here with a family, all of your material conditions. Is my car gonna break down? If it does will I get fired? How can I afford my kids soccer cleats? Will the babysitter cancel on me for my extra shift?
If the only exposure you got for the election that you paid attention to because it was “entertainment” was a “funny” Joe Rogan clip your buddy sent you of the Trump interview it’d be real easy to be like “well, we made it through the first one, and at least he acknowledges that things are more expensive…”
Obviously if you’re tuned in, you know that’s a bullshit front. But if you don’t have the capacity to be tuned in because fucking everything is designed to stress you out and extract what little money you have… Well, here we are.
This right here is hitting on the real problem. People are fed bullshit from firehoses coming in all direction, so they feel like they are informed because of what they have passively taken in. It takes some real effort to step back and think “What if the things I’ve been hearing are not the full story?”, and even more effort to take the next step and actively seek out information that might challenge what you have already heard and internalized. We are ALL guilty of this to some degree.
Precisely–it is 100% the point. If you are stressed out working 2 jobs and raising a kid, you are going to have a lot less energy to keep your bullshit detector running and the simple solutions to complex problems naturally sound more appealing.
I guess you’re right. It’s just so damn important to them and their families… I have been there, super exhausted from all that, but I knew the risk of not being informed about who I’m voting for. I guess it was enough for me to make sure I knew, but not for others.
I’m definitely not saying you should blame yourself for not phone banking or door knocking enough or something.
The system that we live in is just perfect for making us feel like this. And the people in charge are not incentivized to change it for us.
The only way we fix it is by trying to make things better locally, from the bottom up.