Posted on 10/24/2014 5:08:00 AM PDT by LeoMcNeil
There seems to be on the right an insistence that low information voters are destroying the country. This is promulgated by conservative media figures, particularly Rush Limbaugh who appears to have coined the phrase. There is plenty of reason to believe a lot of Americans are completely checked out of day to day political events. The number of people who can’t name the Vice President, Speaker of the House or any member of the Supreme Court is appalling. Equally as appalling is the inability of many Americans to name their Congressman, one Senator from their state or their state’s Governor. Lots of Americans don’t know history, they have no idea who the President was during the Civil War or World War Two. This says a lot about government education, kids are graduating without any knowledge of history and no interest in civics.
No matter how appalling it is that Americans can’t name the Vice President, at the end of the day knowing the Vice President’s name is only a demonstration that someone knows a little bit of political trivia. The same can be said about knowing who the President was during the Civil War. Knowing Lincoln’s name is trivia, knowing what he did and why is far more important. When it comes to history, arguably the government schools are outright failing. Many people don’t have the slightest idea what happened during the Civil War or why. However, there’s more to modern politics than knowing the name of your Congressman. On some level knowing his name is nothing but trivia. Having an idea how he will vote on various issues is far more important. Even more important is knowing his Party going into the upcoming midterm.
People who don’t know trivia are not low information voters. In fact, many of these people are very sophisticated voters who know and understand exactly what they’re voting for. Poor people who don’t pay attention aren’t low information voters but rather highly intelligent people voting rationally. If a Republican says they’re going to cut welfare, cut food stamps and limit Social Security Disability people who are living off of those programs will rationally choose not to vote for such people. If a Democrat is going to make living on welfare almost as lucrative as working a minimum wage job, it makes perfect sense that many people will vote for the Democrat.
Given the choice of spending your day doing whatever you want and working, if the pay is the same voting for the Democrat is a rational choice. In fact, it’s a choice that many people will make. Our fallen nature is such that many won’t work if they don’t have to. The Democrats make it possible to live almost as well on welfare than working, sometimes it’s even better to live on welfare than work. If you would rather not work or if you think your prospect of moving up is limited, voting for Democrats isn’t evidence of someone who doesn’t have any information. Rather it’s evidence of someone who has quite a bit of information and is making a rational decision for themselves. This is what happens when people realize they can vote themselves the United States treasury, they make the rational decision to do just that.
Middle class Republican voters also behave rationally. A lot of these people don’t know the answers to trivia either but they still vote rationally. They earn enough that welfare isn’t an option for them. They recognize that Republicans will cut their taxes, which allows them to get ahead on some level. These are people that understand that their hard work can also move them ahead and the Republican candidate is more likely to support them in that quest. Even rich Democrats vote rationally, they recognize that by funding liberal Democrats they’ll be able to push through laws and regulations that make them more money at the expense of their competition. Even with a modest tax increase they’ll make more money if Democrats pass certain laws or regulations. The rich are getting richer under Obama for this very reason.
It’s a huge mistake to discount any of these people as being low information. They’re not low information at all, rather they’re self interested, rational voters. If Republicans are going to convince the poor to vote for them, they’ll have to convince them that welfare isn’t in their best interest. That will be difficult to do because the Democrats will forever offer more and more money. To call these people low information though is insulting, these are high information voters. No doubt their values are skewed, they don’t share the historic Christian morals this nation was founded upon. If they did they wouldn’t be voting for sloth over work. However given their moral state their votes are perfectly logical and intelligent. If we’re going to change these people, it has to be through faith in Jesus Christ because we will never be able to convince people wallowing in their own sin that they should vote against their economic interests. Especially if it means being forced to work for a living.
Doesn’t take much thought for the masters of free chit to vote for santa claus!
I don’t think these people are unaware of their dependance on the state. They know very well that they’re dependent and vote for further dependency by voting for Democrats. Their hatred of business is more or less fueled by their desire not to work. A good number of these people like the state they’re in. It’s easy, they can do what they want without owing anyone else their time. Sure, they can never get ahead but if one doesn’t care about getting ahead then it makes logical sense to favor dependency.
So knowing how the government works and who is responsible is mere trivia, and believing Democratic Party propaganda without question is being informed.
War is peace.
Ignorance is strength.
Long live Big Brother Obama!
I don’t think you need to know the name of the Vice President in order to be a rational voter.
These people do understand political principles. They have different principles than ours. They understand that voting for Democrats is a financial benefit to them. Democrats are more likely to increase welfare payments and create new welfare programs. This directly benefits poor voters, for many of them it’s a rational choice to vote for a Democrat.
I agree that many of these people aren’t thinking long term. I think it was Keynes who said in the long run we’re all dead. So I can understand why some of these people aren’t thinking long term. Let’s face it, in the history of mankind long term thinking has never been a strong suit.
I never said that knowing Dem propaganda is the equivalent of being informed. I said poor people on welfare make a rational decision to vote for Democrats. They aren’t low information at all, they’re very rational voters who vote in their own self interest. You and I don’t agree with how they’re voting but their votes are largely rational, especially in an economic context.
I said in my post that government schools have done a terrible job teaching history and civics. However, I really don’t think it’s necessary to know the name of the Vice President or even of your state’s Senators to vote in a rational way. All you have to know is the agenda of the two major parties. If you’re poor and on welfare it makes rational sense to vote for Democrats. Obviously there are other issues out there that might sway a voter but looking at economics, if you’re poor and have a poor work ethic why wouldn’t you vote for Democrats?
There are a lot of highly educated upper middle class and upper class people who vote for Democrats. Some of their reasons are economic self interest. However a lot of them vote for Democrats because they don’t have historic Christian morals. Education is a problem but part of education includes the teaching of morality. I think too many Christians ignore this when they send their kids to government schools. The end result is that you can have a highly educated kid with a college degree but no morality. The low morality voter is more likely to vote Democrat.
Can’t agree with this article. In 2012 the Democrats created this ridiculous cartoon pantomime version of Mitt Romney who had nine wives, abused dogs, and went around giving people cancer. And a whole lot of the voters swallowed it.
But, what to do about low-information bloggers?
Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.
The dirty secret is that there are low information voters on both sides. Some people are simply conditioned to be conservative the same as some are ‘yellow-dog’. That’s just the way it is.
But it’s more fun being knee-jerk ‘right’ all the time. They keep stumbling into correct hunches.
It appears to me that the author has only further supported the appropriateness of labelling these voters, “low-information-voters”.
They merely vote for the politician who promises them the most goodies and that’s as deep as their understanding goes. They don’t bother to intelligently consider the subsequent ramifications to themselves, their progeny and their nation. Though that may be driven by selfishness, it does not negate the fact that they are superficial, low-information voters by any definition of the term (not to be too pedantic).
This low information idiot is raising short term animal like self interest to the level of informed enlightenment.
The people he’s defending are as well informed as a dog going after a steak.
Perfectly put.
” They aren’t low information at all, they’re very rational voters who vote in their own self interest. You and I don’t agree with how they’re voting but their votes are largely rational, especially in an economic context.”
They are lazy fools who only care about their SHORT term interests at the expense of their long term interests. They are Detroits-in-waiting.
Geez, can this nitwit set the bar any lower?
Knowing who the vice-president is demonstrates an absolute minimum engagement with the political zeitgeist in which you live and vote.
Good God, this is inane!
How the hell can a voter who doesn't even know who his congressman is know how he is going to vote!? Nonsense through and through this exercise.
What it is a call for is lockstep party voting, based solely on the media-driven impression of who will cut you off the bigger slice of the pie.
"Don't even bother finding out who your congressman is, or how he votes, or whether he is corrupt, or stupid, or evil. Listen to your television to find out your team, then vote for it!"
Too much idiocy, even for a Friday.
BS I used to be one of the low information voters years ago. Phil Donahue drove me crazy enough to get informed. I didn’t know much but I dang well knew I didn’t agree with him and didn’t want to live in a country that he and his audience portrayed. Really liberals still say the same crap he said.
You don’t need to know the name of your Congressman to know how he’s going to vote 95% of the time. All you need to know is what party he’s from. If you know that, you’ll know how he votes almost all of the time. The dirty secret of modern politics is that most Congressmen vote with their party. Thus as individuals Congressmen don’t really matter a whole lot because very few of them step out of their party’s line.
WOW! Leo, my thoughts exactly, written as if I was literate.
Pray for revival!
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