Monday, January 16, 2017

Low-Information Voters: Who Are They?

After the 2008 election, TIME magazine ran a story claiming that many people who voted for Obama never followed the news. This inspired Rush Limbaugh to coin the term "Low Information Voter."

He defined it as people who never follow the news and therefore are uninformed about the news. They don't know anything about politics. They don't know anything about the issues. They don't know anything about the candidates.

They pay attention to pop culture. They watch TV. They prefer to watch shows like TMZ and E! Entertainment than the news. They spend most of their time on Facebook paying attention to gossip. They listen to pop music. They watch TV shows and movies.

They watch shows like TMZ and E! Entertainment most of the year, only to get caught up in the moment just prior to the election. They feel the need to vote because they "need to do their part."

They generally consider themselves as independents, and independents are people who vote for the most popular candidate or the candidate who is most popular by the pop culture crowd.

They vote based on emotion more so than issues. They felt excited that Barack Obama was the first black president, so they voted for him. They felt offended that Donald Trump spoke the truth, so they didn't vote for him.

See, they vote based on emotion. They have no idea the issues. When they voted for Obama they had no idea he was a socialist. They don't even know what socialism is. They may even think socialism is good. They had no idea that Donald Trump's tax plan would benefit them. They do not know because they don't follow the news.They do not know anything about economics.

Some know who the president is while others do not. They may know the names of the candidates, although they do not know what the issues are. They are not informed on the important issues of the day.

And it's not that they don't care to be informed. Low-information voters simply choose to be informed about other things, like what actor won an Oscar, or what's happening in the latest episodes of Survivor.

They react; they do not think. They do not challenge themselves. They don't know about people who don't think like them. They hate people like Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh based on what the people on the View said, although they have never listened to Rush, and never listened to a Trump speech.

Some of them are very smart people. Some of them are academics. They are the people educating our kids at the High School and College level. They teach liberalism because it feels good and sounds good, not so much that it is good. They don't see socialism and Communism as the failure it is, mainly because they just get swept up in the moment. They don't even know their own past. They don't even know their opponents.

On the contrary, informed voters know their opponents. Rush Limbaugh, for example, understands liberals better than liberals understand themselves. Informed voters understand that liberalism is the sister of socialism and Communism. But tell a liberal that and they will adamantly deny it. They will get angry and call you an uncaring idiot, racist, homophobe, and bigot.

They like people like Castro because it feels good and sounds good that Castro created a good education system and healthcare system. They fail to see Castro as the ruthless dictator that he is (was).

But I digress.

Most Low-Information Voters care more about pop culture than they care about what the national debt is and who will pay for it. They care more about planning that trip to Disney World than learning there are nearly as many people unemployed today as during the height of the Great Depression.

They are uninformed voters. They are not stupid, at least most of them aren't, they just don't care about the news, and therefore don't watch it. They don't understand history the way informed voters do.

Further reading:

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