I stepped down from running a large news organization this year, so I've been experimenting with being a person who isn't obsessed with every twist and turn of politics & news. I deleted tweetdeck from my computer & tuned out cable. It has been great. https://t.co/I0hz0eKADS
— Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen) October 20, 2020
What we found is that most Americans — upward of 80 percent to 85 percent — follow politics casually or not at all. Just 15 percent to 20 percent follow it closely (the people we call “deeply involved”): the group of people who monitor everything from covfefe to the politics of “Cuties.”At the start of the year (i.e., pre-pandemic), we asked people to name the two most important issues facing the country. As expected, we found some clear partisan divides: For example, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to cite illegal immigration as an important issue.But on a number of other issues, we found that Americans fall much less neatly into partisan camps. For example, Democrats and Republicans who don’t follow politics closely believe that low hourly wages are one of the most important problems facing the country. But for hard partisans, the issue barely registers....Hard partisans are twice as likely as people who pay less attention to politics to say that they would be unhappy if their child married someone of the opposing party. Hard partisans are also more likely to speak out about these political likes and dislikes. Almost 45 percent of people who are deeply involved say they frequently share their views on social media — in some cases, daily. It’s only 11 percent for those without a politics habit. To put this in perspective, a Pew study finds that 10 percent of Twitter users are responsible for 97 percent of all tweets about politics.This gap between the politically indifferent and hard, loud partisans exacerbates the perception of a hopeless division in American politics because it is the partisans who define what it means to engage in politics.....For partisans, politics is a morality play, a struggle of good versus evil. But most Americans just see two angry groups of people bickering over issues that may not always seem pressing or important.....Each day, partisan Democrats wonder whether that day’s “outrage” will finally change how people feel about President Trump. Partisan Republicans wonder the same thing about Joe Biden. But most “regular” voters are not paying that much attention to the daily onslaught. It turns them off. And the major scandals that do break through? Well, to many of them, that is “just politics.”
I wasn't going to do it this way; but then I figured, why get in the way? It's not the entire piece; but it's a good selection of that argument. A solution? I think it's been this way since 1776, at least. I don't see anything changing it anytime soon. As I like to say, Jules Verne had his world traveler Phileas Fogg cross through the American frontier of the 19th century, where he found a riot going on in a town. Except it wasn't a riot, it was an election; for city dog-catcher.
Sounds about right.
In reading the article the problems with the methods of social-science are pretty glaring.
ReplyDelete"Among Democrats, the political junkies think the influence of wealthy donors and interest groups is an urgent problems. But less-attentive Democrats are 25 percentage points more likely to name moral decline as an important problem facing the country — a problem partisan Democrats never even mention."
The "influence of wealthy donors and interest groups (most of whom are funded by wealthy donors) is intrinsically tied to what I'd call "moral decline". I wish I had a link to any paper they might have described their research model and the results it got them because I suspect their categories are fulfilling their preset expectations,as so often happens in the social-sciences.
I think Marilynne Robinson's insight into the influence of the Calvin Bible, mostly out of the North Eastern colonies on the development of traditional American style liberalism, predating the European "enlightenment" lassiez-faire meaning of it might be a key to how to influence people who otherwise may not be fixated on the political news. I've concluded that there is probably nothing else that is going to save us but a modern articulation of what Calvin was commenting on in that regard. I don't find him as convincing on other parts of the Bible, I think he was too late Augustinian for it to turn out well in much of that.