202 Comments

It's a bit euphemistic to call someone a low-information voter instead of a high-disinformation voters. Like Mark Twain said, “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”

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Good point. Care must be taken to distinguish between low information voters and brain washed voters. Some are low information, not paying attention to the news. But even then, many are influenced by friends, neighbors, spouses who are full on MAGA. They have lots of information, some of it even tangentially true, that is carefully designed to demonize democrates and the media and portray MAGA as the righteous victims.

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I wish there were ways to infiltrate and confuse them, with counter information (that is actually the truth)?

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BINGO, David!

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It's the difference between ignorance and WILLFUL ignorance.

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Trump is the new Jerry Springer

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And shopping channel host.

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Perfect!

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I think the problem is that the mainstream media constantly gave people the strong impression that the economy was bad by selectively focusing on inflation as if it was just a US problem. That distortion (deliberate?) supported the claim that Biden caused our inflation with his excessive spending.

In contrast news about our economic growth, full employment and rising wages were downplayed. This past summer when the World Bank ranked the US economy #1 in the world and that it had increased its prediction for global growth because the strength of the US economy was powering that growth I expected to see banner headlines. Silly me. Outlets like the WaPo and NYT either buried that news in back sections, gave it a small headline far down their website or ignored it.

In contrast stories about inflation were frequent and prominently placed. As inflation eased instead of reporting that fact or that wages were outpacing inflation with the largest gains for the lowest incomes, the media decided the problem was “vibes”. When surveys showed that most people said they and their local areas were doing OK financially but the country wasn’t, the media shrugged it off.

I made a point of asking my friends who are reasonably well-informed if they were aware that the US economy was outperforming other economies — “leaving them in the dust” as The Economist phrased it. Most of them had no clue.

“Media Obsession With Inflation Has Manufactured Discontent”

https://fair.org/home/media-obsession-with-inflation-has-manufactured-discontent/

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I think it's been fairly well established that sunny statistics about the U.S. economy, however excellent and unassailable, fell on the average voter's deaf ears. When the average voter complains about the "economy," what he/she is really mad about is the price of eggs -- and other groceries, and gas, and rent. Trying to mollify these malcontents by touting economic growth, full employment, and rising wages just plain misses the mark.

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The problem, particularly for those who consider themselves well informed, is that they still get that “information” from mainstream/legacy media. It is beyond time that consumers of media divorce themselves from their usual sources and look for reputable, independent, subscription-based platforms. A good example is Substack - which also supports the creation of other independent media which are not controlled by billionaire Trump-toadies.

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Right. Low-info voters may know a great deal about things the rest of us don’t understand at all. They’re busy and not into politics (sadly even when it threatens them).

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In theory you're correct -- but you can't know for sure that the term "low-information" is being misused by Prof. K or by anyone else.

For ex., with regard to economics and many other subjects, I'm a low-information reader, not a high-disinformation reader. And there's no field for which I'm a high-disinformation reader, bc I can distinguish between reputable and non-reputable publications (and avoid the latter).

It's probable that some (maybe many?) people who voted for djt consume very little dis- / misinformation, bc they spend their free time in pursuits that have nothing to do with current events. And voters who believed his claims but who don't watch / listen to / read Fox or any of its kin are considered low-information voters rather than high-disinformation voters: Yes, they're listening to lies spewed by djt, but that's not the same as watching / reading / listening to some source that presents itself as a news org (as opposed to ppl who avidly watch / read / listen to Fox etc. -- high-disinformation).

I urge everyone to call every Dem sen and rep and ask them to work together on creating a new Fairness Doctrine. It will have relatively little impact, but it's better to reduce the flow of lies a little than not at all.

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Such a cruel stroke of luck that Trump of all people is the politician who benefits from the global anti-incumbency scourge. No politician more shamelessly exploits the exploitable, and cosmic justice turns the other cheek every time.

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Trump is the one who tanked Obama's growing economy with his disastrous COVID response. Biden cleaned up Trump's mess, got blamed for the mess, and Trump will take credit for Biden's great economy on Day One™ of his presidency.

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Its infuriating how obvious this is and yet still these morons were fooled.

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I don't know if anyone noticed this, but every democratic president since Carter inherited an economic mess. Every One. And, since recovery tends to cause pain, we spend political capital to get the economy back in shape, AND then we lose the next election because people only remember the pain. This is the result of the myth that republicans are better when it comes to the economy.

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"𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘺𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘺."

I think it's not so much because of the myth but why the myth exists in the first place...they reap the benefits of our work.

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carefully orchestrated

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It’s too consistent NOT to be a strategy. GOP loots and democrats have to pick up the pieces. Which we do. Then they loot again.

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The underlying but usually unspoken myth is that debt caused by government spending is bad. I remember back in the early 90s the media obsessed about the Debt Clock of Doom. Then Clinton not only balanced but had a surplus that was reducing the debt. I was shocked that the media didn’t treat that like an important story. When Bush ran against Gore he repeatedly said he was going to eliminate the surplus with tax cuts. In contrast Gore advocated continuing to use the surplus to reduce the debt but media was not impressed because Dubya was “more fun to have a beer with”. They media weren’t too fussed when Bush drove up the debt with his tax cuts mostly for the wealthy

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We are a gullible people. Our brains have also been trained for attention-deficit awareness. We react like dogs who just spied a squirrel. SQUIRREL!

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LOL. that was a good one.

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yes - I think of how Obama inherited a complete meltdown - a very complex and seemingly impossible task - he gathered around him a team of experts that was able to get our economy back on track (we can quibble about some of the choices, but he got it done) - only to be jeered at by the lovely new Tea Party, a clearly racist radical new movement. I wonder how XXXX will handle such a challenge in the future? answer: he will not. Hasn't got a clue and couldn't care less - as long as he and his buds profit by it with bailouts for their benefit.

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“And the morals that they worship will be gone

And the men who spurred us on

Sit in judgement of all wrong

They decide and the shotgun sings the song”

- Pete Townshend

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Ruh Ro. We got fooled again. Shame on us.

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You got to like Scoby Doo references.

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Excellent article. I fully expect tRump and his ministry of propaganda (Fox, OAN, Sinclair, and right-wing talk radio) to tell us that up is down, black is white, and prices are down irrespective to empirical evidence to the contrary.

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Everyone should make records of prices of common food and other grocery items now: take screen shots, photos of flyers, supermarket shelves. Then you can post these when Trump's "lower prices" translate into increases.

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Trump supporters will never admit any such thing. This only reinforces their willful ignorance about all things Trump. Pathetic.

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Paul, they aren't low-information or high-disinformation voters. They are uneducated voters. They are that way because basic economics is not taught in most middle and high schools in America. Basic personal finance is also rarely taught. Neither is critical thinking and basic logic.

As a retired high school science teacher, I can tell you that part of the problem is that math, particularly algebra, is taught without connections to real-world applications. It's all mechanical turn-the-crank problems like "What are the roots of this particular third-order equation?" The interpretation of graphs is also almost nonexistent. There is a lot of "Here are two points. What's the equation of the line between them?" With content that is completely abstract and devoid of context, the kids are totally bored and completely tuned out. The kids in honors classes learn the manipulations required to answer those questions, but ask them to sketch a graph that might represent a car driving down a street, stopping at a stop sign, and then moving forward, and they will often struggle.

Many kids shown your graph wouldn't have a clue about how to interpret it.

An uneducated electorate is what the MAGA politicians want. That is why they are so hot to eliminate the Department of Education and turn education over to the states, where curriculum will be gutted, and vouchers will be used to defund public education. Private, segregated schools will again become the norm in red states.

The bottom line is not to blame uneducated voters. Blame the systems that failed to teach them what they need to know.

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Economics is a graduation requirement in most states. Unfortunately, it's taught by Social Studies teachers (translation history majors) - most of whom either only took one course and it was Econ for SS teachers and a combined Micro/Macro overview. Most of the ones I know HATE teaching Econ because they don't understand it and some even barely passed it in college. That is how I ended up teaching AP Microeconomics AND AP Macroeconomics at my HS (using Mr. Krugman's textbook) - because I have a master's in business and business experience and they couldn't handle the content. Econ is NOT taught by business or economics majors at the high school level, who have at least had more than 1 Econ class - unlike every other course where courses are taught by content experts. It is like asking Art teachers to teach your Science classes. Personal Finance is also now a graduation requirement in many states. Believe it or not, even in SC where I teach, Econ and Personal Finance are both graduation requirements and it is a deep red state. You can partially blame the system, but it comes down to a lack of basic curiosity about how the world works. They don't have basic cognitive skills. They can't/don't/won't look things up, so they believe their parents, neighbors, co-workers, fellow students, etc. and in a deep red state like SC, that's a huge problem, because they hear A LOT of stupid shit.

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That is how it is in New Jersey: Economics is tucked into history, or they teach the AP courses. But for most kids, it just gets a quick flyover, and it is more about the politics.

I disagree that the kids are totally disinterested--but you have to work hard to catch their interest and build their confidence. For instance, teaching waves in physics (drier than economics and the last unit in the school year, so doubly cursed) by having them do wave mixing on a sound board app. I had one kid who wanted to be a DJ and record producer, and he got totally psyched doing a project where he bought in a mix and talked about changing pitch and harmonics to get different effects and how it affected the waveforms.

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When people say topics like "economics", "personal finance", or "the real-world applications of math" aren't taught in school I cringe. Did I just go to an above average public High School or are these people just lying to fit their narrative?

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it varies by school and many high school math teachers would like to show the dozen or two applications that might make students give math a 2nd look.

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States would be just fine without the Dept of Education because parents are the single biggest influence of the education of their children, not the DOE. In places where parents are satisfied the public schools provide what they want for their children, that’s where parents will send their children. In places where the parents aren’t satisfied with the public schools, they will look for alternatives. Our nation was well-educated before the DOE existed and will do just fine if it ceases to exist.

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Unless you have a child with special needs or a learning disability. Those kids were NOT fine before we had the DOE - and without the DOE there is no one to police the states that laws like IDEA are being followed.

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I trust the people to hold their state leaders accountable to make sure that those with learning disabilities and special needs are provided for.

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If they think that vaccines are bad, and they don’t understand the science behind them, how can you expect them to know that the overall education their child is getting is bad.

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When No Child Left Behind ( a GOP idea) was enacted, educators were worried about test scores. Who profits

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I liked new math and the notion that polynomials of order 4 have 4 zeros/roots. We don't have to work too hard on real life applications because those come along our whole lives. Of course, good teachers will show the applications to the best of their ability.

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The orange turd's presidency is going to be a disaster in ways we cannot fully anticipate. But who will know that when it happens? The right wing media is a 24/7 propaganda machine and the so called main stream media is in free fall collapse when it is not actively currying the orange turd’s favor. Substack and Bluesky can facilitate discussions among like minded liberals, but cannot possibly attain the reach of right wing media. How can we expect there to be a mid-term or next term election correction when half the country (and increasing) has no idea what is really going on? The true facts were by far enough for a Harris-Walz landslide this election. The support for Harris by Liz Cheney and other establishment Republicans showed that the election was not about policy. A sociopathic demogogue viciously and relentlessly lied to appeal to racial prejudice, misogyny and xenophobia and was aided and abetted in the end by all media.

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Totally agree and I would add what Charles Cramer commented below about the Evangelicals. Critical thinking is rejected. Belief is all that is needed.

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Great article!

I think the "Won't Get Fooled Again" song should be your substack theme song

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Sadly, experience shows that we WILL get fooled...again and again and again.

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All of the people, some of the time.

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Some of the people, all of the time.

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One only need fool 51% of the people every election cycle (sigh)

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No. The only foolish thing you believe is that this election was won fairly and freely by Trump: he and Musk rigged it. Seriously, do you believe that a man who has cheated at everything his entire adult life would suddenly stop when it came to an election in which his very freedon was at stake? Of course not. He was saying weeks or months before the election that "we have all the votes we need." Musk apparently called Trump's win four hours before anyone else did.

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The election was not rigged - there's zero evidence that it was rigged. People voted for Trump, as horrifying as that is.

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I don't believe those people see themselves as low information. Rather, they rely on sources that pander to their beliefs, and amplify those.

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Also, I think that as evangelicals, a large share of MAGAs live in a world in which critical thought is rejected. Belief is all that matters.

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Charles, I spent 11 years teaching human service staff about what stress does to their clients - and to themselves. Stress overload is caused by facing an important stressor that lasts more than 30 days and over which they perceive they have little or no control. This causes neurological effects on the brain. Neurohormones released by that stress affect memory, the ability to make and carry out plans and adjust to new information. Control of emotions, particularly fear and anger is weakened. All in all, the person is much less able to think critically. So this becomes part of the Republican strategy. Keep stimulating fear and anger over issues that the voters cannot control. Embed the Big Lie by repetition and promise they will save the country. And it works.

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As good and precise (I’m afraid) as usual, Mr Krugman

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I am happy to have found your column again. I read your column in the Rocky Mountain News for years before it was bought out and exterminated.

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Remember- most of those Trump supporters believed that the US wa in a recession - objectively incorrect because the right wing ecosystem pushed a false narrative. Also, I think the term low information voter fully captures that segment.

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If you find time to read this, I'd be interested in your thoughts. https://charles72f.substack.com/p/why-kamela-lost-in-nine-simple-charts

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From the photo and “oh yes you will.”

I guessed the lyric and laughed out loud. Well typed.

Also I really really like the fact that, now that you have retired as a commentator, I get one essay a day not just 3 a week.

Thanks

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Enamoured with the musical codas - come for the understandable analysis (and yes, the snark), stay for the music.

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The millennia-old criticism of democracy is that it eventually succumbs to the venality of human nature, and here we are.

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