I took a tour today through the web sites of all the local and state newspapers in my area and read everything they had to print. These are sources I rarely read as they haven’t carried much content since the die-off of local news and investigative reporters in the eighties and nineties.
Wow, was that an awakening.
Now I understand why people in my local area vote as if they do not understand the issues or the candidates. They must exclusively read the local news.
Our local news has absolutely no coverage of the current potentially explosive issues on the southern border. Nothing about congressional shenanigans or hospital kidnappings. Nothing about the shocking significant rise of antisemitism in Europe. And only one, nearly content-free, one-sided article about current issues in the middle east.
This prompted me to take a tour of the large mainstream newspapers across the country, which yielded roughly the same result.
It is positively shocking how skewed news has become and I think I now understand why people in our country vote with seeming malice. It is not malice. People are lazy. They do not make an effort to read about all sides of an issue, only the familiar side of the argument. And thus they are ignorant.
They are not victims as they have chosen to not educate themselves. They have chosen to not listen to an opposing view and consider the validity of both sides of an issue. They are ignorant because they have chosen that path. They have abdicated their responsibilities as a citizen to educate themselves and participate.
And if you are ignorant, you will be gamed.