Many voters are willing to accept misinformation from political leaders – even when they know it’s factually inaccurate. According to our research, voters often recognize when their parties’ claims are not based on objective evidence. Yet they still respond positively, if they believe these inaccurate statements evoke a deeper, more important “truth.”
You can blame the gullible listener to only wanting to hear what they want to hear …
… or …
You can blame the well trained, educated and directed media for promoting, highlighting and normalizing the idea of spreading semitruth and fabrication in order to push an overall agenda.
I’m no conspiracy theorist, I don’t subscribe to dumb delusions of aliens or illluminati cults running the world … but I do believe that there is a culture of highly trained individuals working in media these days who just knowingly spread extreme views and pass them off as legitimate enough to be debated. A politician like Turnip shouldn’t be normal … but a national media has made it completely normal to have someone as unwell, politically unstable and sociopathic as Turnip to be acceptable enough to talk about endlessly as if there is nothing wrong with him.
In this case … I blame the messenger
Why does it have to be either or? It’s totally reasonable to blame BOTH.
It might be reasonable to blame people but it’s entirely useless and even counterproductive. There’s no solution that can come out of that. Even if you rebuild the education system, a significant portion would still be vulnerable. You can see that in countries with better education systems. And then of course there’s the blowback that results from blaming people, which the very same actors you’re trying to protect from co-opt and use against you.
Blaming corporate media on the other hand can produce solutions and quickly. The political system has unfortunately been captured to such an extent by capital that this isn’t even considered. Still that the easier and more productive avenue to pursue if anyone would try.
Unfortunately, we’re at a point where any attempt to fix media directly will be met with push-back by those very same people - we see this happening RIGHT now. They are weaponized and can be turned on any outlet that DARES try to speak the truth.
These people are now an army and bad actors will NOT willfully give them up. You have to assume the worst… that any attempt to fix the system will necessarily involve confrontation with them, and more we can reduce their numbers or limit their reach the easier that will become.
Treating them lightly with kid gloves will only encourage more people to join their ideologies, and it’s not a matter of hovering around 50%, there’s a tipping point. The moment there are visibly more people on the side of lies and fascism, a huge chunk of people who simply want to fit in or be on the winning side will simply change sides. Fascism and populism are diseases, and like any disease, it’s tragic that they’re sick, but you first and foremost have to contain it and stop it from spreading. THEN you can start worrying about their well-being once they are no longer a threat.
I could agree … but the gullible masses have no idea they are being manipulated … while the trained and educated media managers and owners (and to a lesser extent the actual journalists) know exactly what they are doing and why
I can blame the listeners for being stupid … but I still blame the messenger for intentionally misleading the public.
Moreover, the founding fathers warned us of this happening, in advance. They knew that it would, they told us that it was all but inevitable, we have had multiple centuries of time in which to shore up democracy… like to implement ranked-choice voting, while instead… we chose not to.
I do not hold out hope for democracy to last much longer, not against such repeated assaults as this. The game of Russian Roulette never ends in happiness, but it does always end.
Things are different now as the educational system is being intentionally damaged, but every single child who grew up in America between the ages of 10 and 80 was raised in an educational environment that taught them in no uncertain terms ALL of the warning signs of fascism and manipulation - these haven’t changed in hundreds of years. They are either willfully ignoring them or spent their years in school eating paint instead of internalizing anything.
It’s totally reasonable to recognize they’re victims. It’s also reasonable to recognize that in most cases, they made themselves that way.
Have you met an average human?
Let me frame this like so:
It’s just another example of capitalist for-profit corporations that maximize profits while offloading their negative externalities onto the rest of us.
They know they’re making money when they tell lies and they don’t care about the downstream effects. For some the downstream effects might even be desirable.
Another way to frame it is: corporate media makes money, with informing (or disinforming) the public as a byproduct.