Facts, schmacts

[hyphenate]

I've been working my brains for quite a few months now, in the question about why anyone, in their right mind, would vote for the idiot in the white house. And I've come to a conclusion.

It's because people really don't give a fuck about facts. We're not talking the politically savvy, here. We're talking general populace. We're talking about the girls who go to the mall, and say they're voting for Bush because he's better looking than John Kerry. We're talking about slackers who have no real investment in their own lives, never mind in the lives of others. We're talking about people who get their daily dose of information from the 6:00 news. We're talking about the spoonfed masses who don't have the attention span of a gnat, and who will vote simply to get it over with.

Some people want to abolish the electoral vote and go for the popular vote instead. But honestly, when people all over this country won't even educate themselves well enough to be informed. There are less people who know anything about the candidates now than there were 50 years ago. Back then, newspapers were read far more, and more often and they weren't owned by huge corporations intent on their own agenda, television was in its infancy and was not regarded as a primary source of information, and people actually turned out for rallies and listened to the candidates speak.

It's still a matter to many of which of the two candidates people perceive as being their best guest at a BBQ.

[Zerex71]

1. I agree with you 100%.

I like to call them the sheeple. I find myself almost daily trying to explain the many differences -- for I can pick them out so easily -- of information, of bias, of propaganda, that I find it almost tiresome to explain. And yet these people aren't very bright. It's a shame, but until the country gets back to a form of civic involvement the likes of which used to be seen in the first half of the 20th century, we will go on being a ridiculous nation.

[DireStrike]

2. It doesn't help that the media doesn't tell them anything.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Oh the irony

The Repubs claim to be the "family values" group. Conservative.

Claptrap

Back in the days when the electorate was more informed, back before TV became a wasteland of soundbites and drivel, back when Norman Rockwell was America's moral portaitist ... those are what the conservatives claim to want.

And yet, in so many more ways, that's what the dems are working toward. Informed and Civic Minded Americans. Fact and Reality based Voting. Prosperity and peace.

Wake the fuck up America!

[idiosyncratic]

4. As long as people watch Fox News and think it is accurate

we will have a horribly uninformed society.

My two best friends are rabidly for *. One of them is very "religious" and thinks Fox provides the most unbiased news coverage.

She is a college graduate and otherwise a very intelligent, practical woman.

The other woman watches Fox almost exclusively and simply believes what she sees.

Oh how I wanted to make them both watch "Outfoxed."