The political system relies heavily on an uninformed electorate, and the more voters are uninformed, the more our democracy suffers.

FYP

Chotiner is right. I love Krugman, but he is not the best reader of political tea leaves and trends. But on economic policy I think he should always be listened to.

Even as I was reading Krugman's piece, I felt that his take on voter knowledge (or, more to the point, ignorance) was just an example of anticipatory self-defense. With a target the size of a barn on his back, can't you just imagine the Right's reaction had he not done so? "Lefty economist claims the American public is 'ignorant'!"

All these home-schooled cretins and graduates of so-called Christian schools (aka right-wing madrassahs) couldn't count to eleven without taking off their shoes!

Sure, there are people who don't make any effort to keep up on current affairs.
But, what about those who do?
TV?
Dialing towards FOX means you're already leaning in that direction.
But, what about CNN? Wolf is awful, as is John King. The rest are actually worse. False equivalence rules there.
MSNBC - After 4pm, they're great, if Chris is on his game. But the rest of the day's a crapshoot.
Radio?
Total domination by the right.
Newspapers?
Compare who's syndicated. I wouldn't be surprised to find that that ignoramous Thomas Sewell has a lot more readers than Krugman or Rich.
So, even when people DO try, their options to find the truth are limited. And THAT is my concern.

You left out a key element. A large segment of our culture rejects 'book-learing' and equates intelligence with 'elitism'. There is a very powerful strain of anti-intellectualism that runs through American culture.

The idea that it is better to have a President base his decisions on 'his gut' or emotions rather than experts. The idea that experts are just elites trying to manipulate people or outright lying.

We see these characters celebrated. Bush's lack of intelligence was considered a plus. And let's be honest, a big chuck of Bill Clinton's appeal came from his percieved 'good-ol-boy-ah-shucks' attitude and not from being a Rhodes Scholar.

We also see it calls for Obama to 'get angry' and shout at his enemies. We don't want reasoned debate, we want a fight. With a clear winner and a clear loser.

My solution to this problem is simple - and unfortunately some of my favorite people (Krugman) need to stop what they're doing right away.

We need a political season.

Right now, I don't care a whit about football. It's not football season. When September rolls around, I will suck in every tidbit I can get my hands on. I will get as much as I can because soon it will be over, and my sport won't be "in season" anymore.

The same goes with Mangoes and Oysters, interestingly enough. NEVER when not in season.

Think about the British campaign season of what? 60 - 90 days? If it wasn't a 24-7 cycle of quotes and nonsense and trivia but a concentrated few months where those who AREN'T talking about politics are in the tiny minority, we might be better informed.

Instead, the "news" is watching Chris Matthews speculate about November mid - terms in February.

-And then there is THIS bit of info, courtesy of the History Channel's program on Death Masks.

Apparently the winner of an election can be forecast by the squareness of the candidate's jaw.

An experiment run at West Point was able to predict class standings (rank) after 4 years by studying the facial features of incoming plebes.

-one need only compare Obama and McCain to see the validity of this experiment. . .

In not sure the problem is that the electorate is too lazy to become informed. It's more that a huge chunk of the populace deliberately seeks out incorrect information. The teabaggers are obviously making a strong effort to be informed. It's just that they get their information from Fox News and right wing blogs that deliberately misinform them. They are seeking out false information, and our media provides it to them in abundance.

And then there are those of us who cannot be as informed as we would like:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-solod-warren/stop-me-before-i-click-ag_b_651153.html

I'm interested in why this should be so. A big part of this problem is that people who are informed about the issues often don't speak out to convince friends and family to see things differently, because in today's American society, that's perceived as elitist liberal condescension. Everyone's political beliefs are seen as valid because under our First Amendment framework, all opinions are supposedly relevant in the public discourse. This ties back into our tradition of allowing everyone to worship their own religion. The truth is not seen as absolute or objective -- rather, it's relative to your own point of view. But the problem is that policy discussions should hinge on real world evidence, not just appeals to personal opinion. But it's that process of drilling down to the facts -- trying to weed out bad arguments and come together around mutually acceptable conclusions -- that is next to impossible in a climate that is so deeply individualistic and fast-paced as our society is today. Everyone lives in his or her own media bubble, only congregating with others who hold similar views.

And meanwhile there's this sense that politics are "off-limits" during family and work get-togethers, because they are supposed to always devolve into name-calling and bitter quarreling. There's no sense that argumentation might be mutually enlightening, or even (dare I say it) fun.

It's much more acceptable to say, "I disagree with your right-wing Fox News talking points, but you have a right to your opinion and I respect your views," than to say, "Those are basically lies that have been fed to you by propaganda outlets." Saying that will effectively shut the door of communication that, in a democracy, we're ostensibly supposed to leave open for future discussions.

So many are misinformed by the media and politicians because there's no organic way for everyday interactions with those around you to critique this narrative-building system.

I can talk sports with the best of them and details of my home teams. I talk about favorite TV shows and movies I've just seen. I talk music and the most recent purchases I made.

But, I can talk rings around people about politics and current issues, while most of those I am engaging are misinformed ans rely mainly on their prejudices and/or widely held talking points (i.e. Obama is a socialist).

Mind you, most of my friends vote the right way and regularly. But what worries me are the misinformed people I see commenting on issues (on the web) that they know nothing about.

Can anyone point to a time since universal sufferage in which our nation's populus has been relatively well informed? Chotiner's point is valid, but it sounds like a utopia that has never existed.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free ... it expects what never was and never will be. " --- attributed to Thomas Jefferson

It's not just the dumbing down of the electorate that's killing democracy, it's the segmentation of our news sources, as well. With the internet, people can go to thousands, millions of blogs, websites, forums, bulletin boards, etc. for their news. But what's happening is we go the place that confirms, or reinforces, our previously held views. I come here a lot. Do you think I go to LGF, or Freeperland to get a "balanced view?"

When the only game in town was the nightly news with Cronkite or Mudd or Huntley or Brinkley, people tended to get a somewhat more objective reading of the events of the day.

What the right discovered - to our consternation - is that the public craves a plausible explanation. Complexity is the enemy of storylines. And if you can't read it on a bumper, chances are you wouldn't understand it anyway.

After a while, sneering and ridicule will replace argument and debate. There's nothing like certitude to "empower" a low-information voter. Now there's nothing left for Americans to decide except whose storyline they like best. Details, wonkery, abstractions, and nuance won't win elections. Modern society may be our triumph but we can't defend it. It's too complicated.

If 50% of the populace is confused, that implies a low-information problem.

If 70% of the population is confused it implies the existence of an entity that's intentionally producing that confusion.

The sociopaths who are the political operatives rely on an ignorant electorate as they are all the more susceptible to anger, resentment, and fear. These four horsemen, ignorance, anger, resentment, fear, drive American politics. The worst that could happen to the cynical operatives of the right is the emergence of a well-educated, well-informed electorate. Since that would also require a large and stable middle-class, the right-wing has little to fear.

The middle-class has been under attack since the days of Reagan, and our educational system has become third rate. In the hinterlands of the homeland ignorance, anger and resentment are in charge, and that's not likely to change. That the Rethugs are the prime beneficiaries of this perverse reversal of reason should make us all the more wary of the elections in 2010 and 2012.

People believe what they want to believe. Sure there ar a lot of uneducated morons out there, but I would argue most are not uninformed--they choose to get and accept information that conforms to their world view. I know extremely well educated and highly intelligent people who vote Republican. When challenged on particular points they typically end up falling back on slippery slope arguments--"I admit that most of the unemployed really do want to work, but if we keep extending unemployment benefits we are taking away the incentive to work and the masses will just keep voting in politicians who will tax me to pay unemployment to people who are too lazy to work" The underlying world view which leads them to this point could be religious fevor, racism, greed etc. The result is that they filter out anything which does not comport with their world view and accept uncritically everything that supports their world view. I think the shrinks call it cognitive dissonance. The point is everybody does it including the left and what I think education and intellect do is gives somebody a fighting chance to re-examine their world view periodically and reject parts that just do not make reality based sense.

The FOXes of the world and the Tea Baggers and most demagogues are being aided and abetted by the steady erosion of valid political discourse. Network news used to cover the news, albeit never in great depth. Today, much of the shrinking news "hole" goes to health, lifestyle, spots, celebrity....overseas news coverage is dwindling.

In the age of Twitter, a 140-character statement from Sarah Palin can get more exposure than a New Yorker profile of the phenomena of Wikileaks.

In the age of pundits, bloviators can come on spouting patently false talking points and never be called to question for the accuracy of their statements.

In the age of modern journalism, scientific facts get smothered in "balanced" coverage from the other side....material often created by think tanks funded by industry and designed to cloud the discourse and discourage real debate.

And today with Facebook, internet, Twitter, TV news, print journalism, tabloids, AOL, Yahoo, Google....we are bombarded with information....and in the process learning nothing from it.

At AOL logon the other day there were literally over 50 different links to different stories....one of them breathlessly headlined...

REESE WITHERSPOON CHANGES HAIRSTYLE!

Everything has equal value and that value is largely....worthless.

I don't think it's an uniformed electorate, I just think there is a political party with the help of media outlets (Fox News) that is for all intents and purposes, engaged in propaganda. All this is heightened by the fact that times are tough and folks are more susceptible to lies.

Calling folks ignorant is the reason why liberals keep getting hit with the elitist tag, it's better to forcefully call out the GOP with their lies.

In human history, it's never been easier to get -- and stay -- well informed.

True, but at the same time it's never been easier to get --- and stay --- mis-informed. FOX News and the right-wing noise machine combined with mainstream media stenographers who report --- 'Republicans insist Earth is flat, Democrats disagree' --- rather than inform --- 'Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and Senator John McCain lie repeatedly in immigration debate' --- make it much more difficult for the average person to separate good information from horseshit.

I do believe that we all have a responsibility to keep abreast of what's going on in the world, but in fairness to misguided fools, it's awfully easy to think you're taking responsibility for staying informed when in reality you still don't know anything.

"Chotiner is right. I love Krugman, but he is not the best reader of political tea leaves and trends. But on economic policy I think he should always be listened to."

He's never been wrong. Especially about cashing the check from Enron.

Some of the failure is caused by progressives' refusal or inability to develop real counter-narrative communication strategies. Simplicity is something conservatives -- perhaps with their better access to ad agencies -- have grasped for decades. The Democrats' response is a Federal program we assume will be popular. What can match "tax cuts pay for themselves" or "the Federal government has to live within its means just like families"? Who is out there saying, over and over in about 10 words or less that anyone can get, "First things first: we need jobs. Without jobs, there's no tax revenue to reduce the deficit"?

The public wants more jobs a hundred times more than solving the budget deficit. Can we get that and pursue a strategy of pounding "jobs, jobs, jobs" regardless of how loudly the Republicans scream "deficit, or do we have to play defense all the time?

"Calling folks ignorant is the reason why liberals keep getting hit with the elitist tag, it's better to forcefully call out the GOP with their lies."

Using a private jet when making a movie about AGW doesn't help. Neither does sending your kids to private school.

Face it, most people get their news from TV. And, as noted above, its not Huntley Brinkley or Cronkite anymore. And even if it was, most people are not home these days watching the evening news at 6:00 or 6:30 pm. So the TV news they get is at 11:00 pm and is largely limited local if-it-bleed-it-leads trash news about a car accident, untimely death, or some other sob story with no national news at all. And we wonder why people are mis- or uninformed? And as for local papers, most are so superficial as to be meaningless. Seriously, even some of the supposedly better ones -- i.e., the Miami Herald -- is virtually useless. Except that most people, unless they read the NY Times every day (despite its faults) haven't a clue as to how uninformed they are....

What's a poor teabagger to think?

I hitched across the country...
North to east and west to south...
Hopping rides on semis...
10,000 miles in 17 days...
Leapfrogging from truck stop to stop...
The undulating land rolling by...
There was but one constant wind a-blowin':
Rush on the radio...
Spewing fire and ire...
Telling us where-for and how-much and who-so...
A tireless rush of Rush...
Puffing and pulling as hard...
As an 18-wheeler larded with Walmart gold...

I hear tell if you turn on the telly...
And channel search for "fair and balanced"
It's like being in a truck...
Traveling the country...
But with pretty blonds with upturned noses...
And sassy voices and pert-pointed tits...
Narrating the drive-by hate parade...
For your discriminating viewing pleasure...

And you want to know what is really strange?
It all looks and sounds like real news.
All of it...
How odd.

An anecdote I've offered before. Over the years, my wife has learned in the course of casual conversation that this friend or that acquaintance voted Republican in the most recent election. So she asked them why. The answer was a variation on, "Because I agreed with So-and-so on the issues." So my wife would go through some of the issues. "So-and-so believes this - is that what you believe?" And the answer more often than not was "No." Whereupon the friend or acquaintance remarked with shocked surprise that they had not been aware of any of those things.

Just anecdotal. But certainly indicative. Most people simply do not know who they are voting for. That fact that one of our major political parties routinely obscures its real policy aims does not help. But most people don't know that either.

Speaking for myself only, I believe that over the last three decades, the American public has subjected to an increasing and unceasing stream of neo-conservative political propaganda, which has distorted citizens' collective perception of events happening both locally on Main Street and in the greater world at large.

Only one generation ago, American film audiences once laughed off The Howard Beale Show - with "Sybil the Soothsayer" and "Miss Mata Hari & Her Skeletons in the Closet" - in the 1976 Oscar-winning black comedy Network as nothing more than ham-handed populist demagogy, which of course could never, ever happen here - right?

Unfortunately, much of what the late screenwriter Paddy Chayevsky foretold in Network has indeed come to pass with the mainstreaming of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and the establishment of Fox News, with dire consequences yet to be reaped from our failure to heed his prescient warning about the inherent perils of corporate ownership and consolidation of our media.

People can remain stupid if they want. But when they start running around like Rush Limbaugh Yak-Bak toys parroting the "Obama is a Marxist" absurdity then they really do have to pick up a book to learn their history or else the rest of us should start calling them traitors to their country for refusing to pull their weight to keep this democracy of ours alive.

And that by the way is why I am so opposed to movements like the Religious Right. If "consent of the governed" is to mean anything at all, then we owe it to our fellow citizens to give them our best judgment. And we can't do that if we have basically outsourced that judgment and our vote to some televangilist of a religious movement that demands we we conform and obey -- in matters both religious and political.

Let's put Sam Simple (3rd commenter) among the "great uninformed." We (atheists and Democrats) homeschooled our children and turned out an attorney working on sustainable economic solutions and a geologist engaged in environmental clean-up. He is indeed "Simple" to slam an entire group of people based on a bigoted stereotype. I bet he was public-schooled, the poor, benighted guy.

Another problem is that informing the public has become "Let someone else do it."

Also, Democratic bloggers blog to each other, and do not reach out and try to make people more knowledgeable.

One can start an email chain letter sending links to relatives, and friends. Print out articles that tell the truth and mail them to fraternal organizations or to individuals that you know or do not even know.

Fore example send articles from "wwww.oldamerican century.org/14pts.html.
www.ourfuture.org.
www.alternet.org/tags/fascism/.
www.maebrussell.com/Articles%20and%20Notes/German%20P...

For info. on who are the really, really big spenders, go to:www.lafn.org/gvdc/Natl_Debt_Chart.html, It is not the Democrats, it is the Fascists.

Explain to your fellow Americans that the "pretend to be" republicans have been trying for years to brainwash them by telling lies and repeating them over and over. They will not like that when they realize the truth.

If you want to know the nature of the problem you need not look any further than the post just below. Fox won't air VoteVet's ad. Why? Well Fox is not a news channel. It is a propaganda channel that shapes its message very carefully right down to the advertisements. Its viewers aren't just fed a steady diet of Right Wing slanted nonsense. The viewer's entire viewing experience, down to and including the commercials, is shaped by a common, controlled message. Diversity of opinion isn't even allowed among the right winger talking heads. The few "liberals" are sort of like the Washington Capitals acting as hapless foils for Fox's conservative media stars.

The old time Stalinists would be proud of the message discipline displayed by Fox News.

Fox News is actively anti-democratic. Diversity of opinion is not allowed.

Our challenge is to talk our friends and family to watch something other than Fox. From what I have seen for many of them giving up Fox would be harder than giving up smoking, alcohol and sex.

"I bet he was public-schooled, the poor, benighted guy."

Most likely he was...

"Fox News is actively anti-democratic. Diversity of opinion is not allowed."

Arrest them all, Comrade! Oddly, many Democrats do not accept invitations to appear. That's their right too. Don't like FOX? Don't watch it.

It's too bad there isn't an industry devoted to providing basic information to the citizenry so they understand the issues of the day.

The problem is not just ignorance, its idealogical thinking as well.

never easier, but more difficult because like the middle to late 19th century the level of really partisan media outlets is very high.

I don't know, but perhaps Krugman feels he has to hold back a bit on any kind of comment that would easily trigger an "arrogant elitist in an ivory tower" attack. [He will never persuade some people out there, but there are many others who are open to persuasion as long as they're not being told they're ignorant and lazy.] Yes, many people should make an effort to be better informed; perhaps Krugman decided to let others make that point.

Necessity is one of the best motivators for political awareness. When things are running smoothly voters are just not that engaged but the current state of affairs demands involvement due to the huge impact and potential impact politics is having on our lives. We, as progressives and liberals see the craziness becoming overwhelming, just like greed and are saying enough.

The crazies have their own 24/7 national propaganda machine on TV and it still won't be enough to bring them to power again because we have seen how devastating their policies are to our democracy. There will be no republican come back because we must save not only our democracy but also our planet and the human race from their destruction.

If people only knew what I know they would agree with me on all political issues. Please!
If people didn't read US magazine they would be absorbed in the NYT and learn all about the world.
Sure!
A highly educated friend of mine watches O'Reilly every night and believes him.
People see the world in different ways. You can argue with them but we all see the world through our own prism.
Hell, Jefferson owned slaves and wanted to go to war with England again in 1798.

Personally, I'm running out of gas for Republican tantrums and Democrat enabling. How are voters to keep score in a such a juvenile and catty political environment?

I like and admire Krugman but that stock would rise if he had the balls to call out the reason why many voters are "ill-informed" and it has less to do with their obvious distractions than it does our SUCKY MEDIA!!!!!!!

Krugman's point is that political decisions affecting the economy trump other policy decisions as far as voters are concerned, and that observation should not come as any surprise to any informed person since it's a well documented voter behavior. There is no "Policy Fairy" as far as the American public is concerned. And like it or not, that's just the way it is. That's the soul of a heartless game.

BTW Dissing the average voter is no way to go through life. Let the Repugnant ones specialize in that. Obama and his team, thanks primarily to Larry Summers ignoring the expert simulations of various stimulus amounts that didn't agree with his own informed opinion, especially the $1.2 trillion the model deemed to be the right amount, shied away from the political risks of putting too big a stimulus bll on the table even if that was what was required, and they are now being held hostage by the Republic-cons in their attempts to address their mistake born of arrogance and cowardice and political convenience.

Have you read the stuff about the Texas board of education, or how they are influencing what goes into everybody's schoolbooks? If watching the news or picking up papers was enough to keep you informed I might agree, but it almost seems there are just as many issues in politics where the media misinforms the public as where it informs the public. Much of this takes the form of simply not countering what the media knows to be false statements by well-known people who they quote or who appear on their programs.

People get lied to in school, they get lied to from their radio shows as they drive to work, they get lied to by their newspapers and from watching the news at night, they get lied to in church. Someone working hard to become well-informed is almost as likely to be misinformed as someone who didn't pay any attention to politics at all. I have to agree with Krugman that it is not the public's fault. partially, as he says, because people have busy lives and may not have the time to become well-informed, but also partially because of the seemingly deliberate misinformation process that is occurring everywhere in American society.

The rise of Christianist fundamentalism tracks perfectly with the gradual dumbification of the general electorate, since the former demands a purposeful and intentional ignorance of fact and science.

"the usual suspects will say that it was because Mr. Obama was too liberal," which would be both foolish and wrong.

Oops Steve accidentally told the truth about Obama. It is foolish and wrong to think of him as liberal.

I do not see what is gained by blaming the electorate. Democrats need to to focus on making their case to the voters. If a minority of Republicans are blocking a vote on a bill to extend unemployment benefits which the majority of Senators want to vote for, you have to point it out. You have to point it out that one or two more Republicans in the Senate could mean blocking most things Americans want from their government from even coming to a vote. You need to point it out over and over again. Whining isn't going to get you anywhere.

FOX News, the most profitable cable news network cultivates ignorance and fear. And in a nation of commuters, 90% of talk radio is conservative. Every day, during morning and afternoon drive time, America's airwaves are dominated by hate filled screeds against Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama. Sean Hannity, Laura Inghram, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, et al prey upon listeners' insecurities for profit. It is impossible to have an informed electorate when major means of communication are warping our public discourse.

As we struggle through the worst recession since the Great Depression, hate radio repeats the same messages on a daily basis in every major media market 24 hours a day: "Obama is a socialist, a communist and a fascist. He's ruling by dictate, he's taking over everything, what's next, runaway spending, he's taking away our liberties, blah, blah, blah...."

A captive audience of commuters is driving in a sea of misinformation both to and from work. When they come home, they turn on FOX News where Megyn Kelly scares them about angry black men. Should they tune into any other major news network, maybe they'll hear a six second sound bite in a ninety second report that Limbaugh, Hannity and others have been lampooning for hours. This goes on everyday, every week, every month. It wasn't like this in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. But we deregulated radio in the 1980s, relaxed the ownership regulations and eliminated the fairness doctrine. Fear and misinformation are good for ratings and market share, but bad for democracy.

Millionaire anchors and elite news directors at ABC, NBC and CBS ignore the insane rants and accusations on hate radio and FOX News, then ask viewers, "Why are Americans so angry?" Worse, regular reporters are defending FOX. Jake Tapper called FOX News "a sister organization" last year and took Obama to task for a snafu over a press avail. Sister organization? WTF?

FOX News is not at all like ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN. FOX has an agenda: scare white people and promote ignorance. And any argument that MSNBC is the ideological counterpoint to the misinformation emanating from FOX is simply hilarious. FOX is a force unlike any other in television. It promoted death panels at town hall meetings and tea partiers on the National Mall.

It get's better. In the ACORN case, despite two states attorneys general concluding that O'Keefe's videotapes were misleading and edited to misinform, FOX and talk radio downplayed the results. Conservatives believe the ACORN sting was real and justified. O'Keefe and his tart are the right's Woodward and Bernstein.

FOX and friends would not be able to get away with any of this if the Washington Post and the NYT checked Okeefe's tapes against the transcripts of the raw footage, or simply read the reports from the states attorneys' investigations. But they did neither. And to add insult to injury, both Clark Hoyt, public editor at the NYT and the WPost's Ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, shirked their duties as well. The recent New Black Panther Party fiasco is just another chapter in the cowardly standards of elite journalism.

This has been going on for at least 15 - 16 years. Obama couldn't change the culture of Washington because the culture of Washington's press corps lives in fear of Rush Limbaugh. Last week was a perfect example.

On his CNN show, Kurtz asked Roger Simon if Limbaugh had made a racist joke about the president. Limbaugh chided Kurtz the next day, "Howard, you are better than that." You are better than that? Limbaugh excused Kurtz and went on to blame Kurtz's producers for misinforming him. Limbaugh didn't go after Kurtz, he went after his staff. Kurtz, himself, doesn't ever call the racist "satire" of Rush Limbaugh racist. He uses a foil like Roger Simon. Kurtz will never take on Limbaugh directly due to fear. Besides, Limbaugh's just an entertainer you see.....

Until our elite journalists confront conservative talk radio and FOX News for their "Insane White Posse" mode of broadcasting, we're screwed. Good people are angry, confused and frustrated. Some are so deranged, they go out and buy more guns because they think Obama will take away the guns they currently own.

Millions of Americans are misinformed for two reasons. Fear and Profits. Those responsible for informing the electorate in our democracy fail to do so for the same reasons. Fear and profits.

It is hard for me to feel that we are any longer masters of our fate. It seems we are embarking a random, drunkard's walk thru history, at the mercy of contingent events and those who demagogue their way into the Presidency.

Now and then the system will throw up an Obama, but they will be swimming against the tide of destruction wrought by our ignorance.

Everyone else has brought up a number of great points. IMHO, thorin's comment about a "large segment of our culture reject[ing] 'book-learing' and equat[ing] intelligence with 'elitism'" nailed it, and really is the very, true, and honest heart of the problem:

For the past 40 years, we've had an entire political movement dedicated to ensuring, encouraging, and promoting willful ignorance.

This is the reason:

Limbaugh listeners are called "Dittoheads" -- It's because they're encouraged to believe every word that vomits forth from that drug-addict's mouth.

The right wanted to remove media ownership laws -- It was so the likes of Murdoch could buy hundreds of outlets to spread propaganda ...

The right blasts newspapers -- They don't want their followers to trust the facts they don't control ...

They home school their kids and create their own colleges -- That way, they can fill kids with misinformation from birth, ensuring a steady stream of stupid ...

Our nation is screwed no matter what. I know that's fatalistic and nihilistic and all sorts of kinda depressing.

But we simply don't have the power on the left to challenge two generations of this shit. We just don't.

Of course, if anyone can prove me wrong, please, please do ...

Well, let's not forget that in order to find reality they have to ignore the idiotic personality-centered fluff (most media) and outright lies (Fox and rightwing media). When there's an active attempt to MISinform, getting informed really isn't as easy as you and Chotiner present.

Most people are too damned busy working low or no pay/benefit jobs (often multiple) just to keep their heads above water.

At the end of the day, they just DON'T GIVE A SHIT --= 15 minutes of nooz is all the average working person can stand anymore. Then it's "entertainment."

And the average American can hardly be blamed for this. This is how this entire culture has been engineered.

Remember, Reagan's FIRST official act was to steal the public broadcasting airways by abolishing the Fairness Doctrine/Equal Time Amendment. This paved the way for the propaganda wurlitzer that has overtaken the mass media and replaced journalists with happy-talking mouths without brains; it gave us Johna Goldberg and Glenn Beck (egad!).

So even if the average working American were inclined to spend their off hours at the end of a workday "informing" themselves, they couldn't simply turn on the TV to do it. Instead we are forced to wade through a sea of propaganda and bullshit and even then, there is no guarantee that we will be accurately informed.

That is how it was MEANT to be people.

Keep you too busy to care
Hide the carrot so you can't find it even if you do care.

This is why everyone presently in government should be forced out and replaced by completely new people, hopefully NONE of whom are "career" politicians.

Then we can reshape the laws and the country to suit the vast majority of its inhabitants and taxpayers, rather than continuing fealty to a favored 1%.

The US is an apartheid state, but most of its residents don't realize it. It isn't black versus white, its

tiny tiny population of RICH people
versus
huge, majority population of THE REST OF US.

Maximize democracy
Kill incumbency.

Actually it's the other way around - life for a middle class American is too EASY for him/her to worry about who is in charge and what they are doing.

In places with high unemployment, like 20% high unemployment, people start reading newspapers to find out more about who is screwing them.

So I am hopeful that just like 9/11 made Americans look at maps again, the Great Recession will over the next year or two make Americans more econ-savvy.