If you're reading this text, you know the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act was an extremely important development. Whether you agreed with the decision or not, it was a historic moment that will have enormous implications for millions of Americans seeking basic medical care.
And yet, a pretty large chunk of the country has no idea what happened. The Pew Research Center reports today, "Despite extensive public interest in the court's ruling, just 55% of the public knows that the Supreme Court upheld most of the health care law's provisions; 45% say either that the court rejected most provisions (15%) or do not know what the court did (30%)."
I went ahead and put a chart together, hoping it would help drive the point home.
Maddow Blog chart based on Pew Center data
Remember, this has nothing to do with how one feels about the outcome. This is simply a matter of gauging whether Americans know what happened.
And before you argue, "But, Steve, this is just one poll," let's also note that in the Kaiser Foundation survey published yesterday, 59% were aware of the Supreme Court's ruling, while 41% were not.
Chris Cillizza called results like these "staggering," and he's right, but it's a reminder that those who aren't engaged and don't make at least some effort to keep up on current events, often have no idea what's going on.
Why do politicians stick to sound bites? Why do campaign ads so often appeal to the lowest common denominator? Why do candidates feel like they can get away with brazen, demonstrable lies? Because there's an enormous contingent of the American electorate that's deeply, almost shockingly, uninformed, which in turn makes them easily misled and manipulated.
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It's not just lack of information, it's disinformation. If you are a Fox "News" watcher who has been told repeatedly that the most important parts of the ruling are that the Chief Justice singlehandedly limited the Commerce Clause and Medicaid, you might well think that it was mostly struck down.
And the Arizona immigration law case was even worse than that -- even supposedly "responsible" news organizations talked mostly about the "papers please" provision that was partially upheld, and gave considerably less emphasis to the fact that most of the law was struck down.
While I totally agree with the above statement I disagree with the characterization that seems to imply that only Fox News is engaged in dispensing misinformation. Both sides do it...present factual news that puts their side in the best light.
It is possible to be factual correct but still be missing very important information. By political pundits and commentators, this is generally done on purpose. But, it can even happen by accident. For instance, this quote from the above article:
While the survey may have been published "yesterday" it was gathered from a poll conducted the day of the court's decision and the following two days. I think that could skew the results, meaning that many people who didn't know about the decision on Thursday and/or Friday probably did know more by Saturday, Sunday, and the following days.
I only point this out to say exactly the point that Mr. Benen is making (which I agree with him completely) and that is that people live by sound bites and less on deep substance or a complex understanding of the issues.
This quote from Mr. Benen is 100% spot on:
And BOTH sides cater to these groups because it is such a large part of the electorate. Both sides.
I am sorry but I just don't have time for the news---I am too busy watching FOX!
(What? do I hear laughter?)
That's a GOOD one! Sadly, so true!
Hate to say it, but in this one case, people watching FOX news are *definitely* aware that it passed. The *significance* of this, on the other hand. . .
So very true!
Civil rights, VietNam and 9-11 seemed to be significant enough to get most of America's attention. The ACA can help nearly as many Americans as did the civil rights movement, yet so many prefer American Idol or some other pap. How do you wake them up? A slap upside the head risks more brain damage. Perhaps give them a choice. Either get health insurance or face a $2.00 per bullet tax on new ammo and a $1.00 luxury tax for bullets already owned.
Just have Kim Kardashian weigh in on the subject.
Yeah, and I bet Mr. "Holier than Thou" Benen can't tell us who won the latest Dancing With the Stars, or why TomKat is now just plain old Tom!
Get with it, Steve, and tune into the Mainstream Media tonight. . .
Uh, Steve works for MSNBC, so I think he has run across those things. Even Rachel mentions them every so often.
I think that was sarcasm...
I guess look at this problem as our citizens ignoring most of what is said because they don't believe they can do anything about any of it.
When you seriously examine our political system, is our citizens the current level of disinterest apathy or wisdom?
I have heard so many people brag that they pay no attention to tv and the news. They get their news from blogs..blogs which is more often then not opinion.
I agree keir but would even add late night comedy shows to the list as well.
there's no way to have a zero-spin newscast, but as far as deliberately spreading skewed informatio nand outright misinformation.. yeah.. one station stands out on that one. in fact their very own CEO said something to the effect "it's news if i say it's news"
Any reference for that "to the effect" quote because it applies to any news reporter and/or news agency. News is relative and subjective, so what they report is, in essence, the news.
So, yes, when the head of a news organization directs his/her organization to report on something, then it becomes "news" as reported by that organization.
Now, if you want to make this case, go ahead.
Fox News has spent the last few days yelling about taxes in health care reform, with people on the network suggesting that the mandate penalty in the bill is a tax that is "going to hit everybody." In fact, far from affecting "everybody," the fine will apply only to a small number of people that refuse to buy insurance. And contrary to Fox News' talking points, health care reform is not even close to the "largest tax increase in the history of the universe."
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/07/03/video-fox-news-tests-a-new-gop-talking-point/186900
The "mandate" tax is not the only tax in the Affordable Healthcare Act. There are many others like the one on page 339 which is a 2.5 percent tax on medical device manufacturers. Now you might say, that's a tax on big business not taxpayers but you would fail to realize that taxes are business are passed on to the consumers.
I've seen estimation that Obamacare will raise over 500 billion dollars in various taxes. Funny, in all the articles that dispute this being the biggest increase never mention dollar amounts, only percents of GDP. Do you know a tax that ever raised more than half a trillion dollars? I'd be interested in knowing the tax bill and the amount.
I think that people that ignore whats going on are just plain irresponsible.Doesn't surprise me that so much misinformation is out there, as its easy to sell hate, bigotry, and fear to those that want to hear that message.
...there's an enormous contingent of the American electorate that's deeply, almost shockingly, uninformed, which in turn makes them easily misled and manipulated.
As progressives, what, if anything, can we do about this?
The ONE BIG survey would find that about 70 percent of Americans don't know squat.
Nearly all other polls and surveys are simply measures of efforts to keep it that way.
You can't get real news from the major news outlets. Everything has a slant and either no one knows or cares what the real outcome of the ruling means to the uninsured.
This isn't even that deep. Even if the news doesn't explain what it does, the fact that people don't even know the most basic element (was it struck down or was it upheld) is problematic. If you don't even know what happened, you can't exactly have a dialogue about it.
What this graph shows me is that ALMOST 50% of people don't pay attention or bother to find out the FACTS...
They are too busy tuning OUT....
I presume those people are busy working their three jobs or focusing their attention on trying to keep their heads above water, but hey, I'm an optimist.
Agree with Andrew. I'm sure this is true of some; how many is hard to say. There are sure a lot of folks out there who are just too damned tired to pay much attention to the day's events, shift workers who miss the news hour, young people focused on their own little worlds, and so on. Not everyone who is not a public policy wonk is an idiot I guess.
I just think that this shows that 45% of the American people are not, in some way, connected to the Facebook machine because there is no way that anyone could have logged onto FB that day and not seen the news. It was EVERYWHERE (along with a lot of shoddy amateur analysis).
Latest number I find says 40% are not using FB. Which accounts for all but five percentage points when compared to the 45% shown from this data. It accounts for all of it when compared to the Kaiser Foundation's data.
TL;DR
Ezra Klein's article last week in the New Yorker explains a lot...the title is a little misleading, but read it.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/06/25/120625fa_fact_klein
Aristotle called that INVICIBLE IGNORANCE. It is the strength of the Republicans. Since people DON"T and DON"T seem to care, feed them anything and thy'll fall for it.
American public, they name is Apathy.
It is sad that the old adage "ignorance is bliss" applies to such a large segment of the electorate. One thing is for sure....the apathetic condition is just as prevelant amongst the Democrats. They have the same propensity to be lazy and have their opinions formed by so callled experts or worse yet, some celebrity, instead of gathering all available information in order to form their own.
Perhaps the biggest reason is because we get to curate our information these days. It used to be you knew about things because you couldn't avoid hearing about them if they were in the news. Now, it's easy to limit intake. You have to have a real interest to in news or politics in general or the ACA battle in particular; otherwise, it's easy to miss.
A very scary fact indeed that there are that many tuned out people in our country. Do they vote and if they do do they just walk in and pull the lever closest to the door?
The voting question is so relevant to this discussion. It is my experience (would love to see data) that most people vote a) party and b) likability (impression) of candidate, NOT substance (unless you count "party" as substance but if they are as informed about party position as they are the news then, well, you get the picture).
Personally, I know some remarkably ignorant people. They have no real interest in politics or civic affairs, then wonder why they get screwed by the banks, or laid off, downsized, or outsourced. They fall for the most outlandish stories, and once they have made up their mind, they refuse to think they could possibly be mistaken. I have heard them argue with informed, knowledgeable people, and leave thinking they won an argument.
I find this scary and very disturbing. I don't know how to reach them, they seem proud of their ignorance, and despise anyone they think is 'elitist' (meaning educated.)
Not a very rosy outlook, eh?
Kevin, I work in a maintenance department of a unionized chemical plant with 20 middle aged white men. I would say 80% are almost clueless as to what is going on politically. They are totally against Obama. Probably the last time any one of them read a non-fiction book was in high school. It is senseless to try to debate anything because they know no facts and wouldn't believe the facts anyways.
It is amazing to hear these people promote certain politicians that will take away their union rights, make health care more expensive or basically any social program that will make their quality of life better. They are determined to vote against their own best interest.
Nothings going to change until people start going hungry. It's ironic to me that the republican plans will, in the long run, produce this change.
No one ever went broke underestimating the civic knowledge of the American People. I am sure that a good percentage of the population thinks the entire law will be voided on Mitt Romney's first day in office, and an even larger percentage is more concerned about their cell phone bill.
No, in fact lots of people have gotten extremely rich doing just that.
Will someone tell the corporate news media that they need to do their job again. Oops. they've been corporatized ... with few exceptions. . The corporomedia is too busy to inform folks about what's really important. That's the way Wall Street likes it. We live in Corporate World almost devoid of substance. We live in corporately contrived reality. We live in a news world where corporate GOP politicians are allowed to lie at will on Sunday politichat programs. We live in corporate quasi reality and the corporate media is in largest part the loudspeaker in the asylum. America is going nuts and corporate news media is leading the parade. They just want to line their pockets with gold while the gettin's good, in any way they can get away with ... while they pretend to be objective..
Only about 25% of people vote. Much of the 75% that dont are these uninformed you see in polls, and that is OK as long as they continue not to vote. But it is both sides jockeying for votes that brings them into the fray, many times with dire consequences as those people know not what they are really voting for. Welcome to the new republican agenda. Offer the uninformed a tax break, or make them scared and/or hate someone, and they'll vote for whatever you want as long as their employer is still legally obligated to give them a couple of hours to do so.
Going to be funny when all those kids and people under 30 who do their taxes realize that they have a nice chunk of extra tax (I mean Penalty) to pay on their return. WHat when did this happen, I thought it was all free will be the mantra.
In order for that to happen, they would have to realize between now and then that something is different in the tax code. Do you think the subgroup that doesn't know the ACA has passed and been upheld by the Supreme Court will be informed about the tax code?
Like all the other "good things" written into the tax code, it will likely be written in as a deduction you claim if you participated rather than a penalty you pay for non-participation.
Gary, yer'just goofy.
I'm a news junkie... but I don't watch reality shows. I can't tell you who won American Idol... ever. I have no idea if Dancing with the Stars is still on the air or not... or who ever won. If it wasn't for headlines, I wouldn't know who the Kardashians are, because I've never seen one of their shows.
I only keep up with popular culture enough to understand what the latest meme is.
I suppose to some of my friends, watching the news is boring. For me, watching "their" programming is boring. It doesn't bother me until it's time to vote. Then, I start to worry about how they made their decisions. I hope they're not voting for whoever they think Kim Kardashian would vote for.
I do try to talk with them about politics, on both the local and national level, but I see their eyes glaze over... and they change the subject. Maybe if I started the conversation with "Hey! Did you see who all the Toddlers in Tiaras are voting for?!"
sigh.
We live in an amazingly ignorant country. It is astonishing to me how many people have no current events knowledge. On this basis, it makes sense that political figures can lie through their teeth about all manner of subjects and not be called out on it. And when we have a complacent press, that is complicit in many ways, with the liars who are campaigning, it makes it even worse. God help us.
Good post, Neil. Indeed, a press in the form of political talk show that does not require answers germane to the question asked before moving-on to the next agenda item limited in salient fact and substance.