You assume people WANT to talk or even think about politics at all. Most people DON’T GIVE A SHIT. They actively try to AVOID politics. They don’t think it affects their daily lives. And to be honest, they’re right. 90% of government changes have no direct affect on their lives, nearly all effects are indirect. Unless the government is directly giving individual tax breaks, or stimulus payments, the effect of policy is hidden behind companies making changes in response.
They think various parts of the government have either a lot more, or a lot less power than they actually do. Many for whatever reason seem to think the President has ANY control on gas prices at all because that bullshit is repeated every time gas prices go up, a commodity with a price based almost exclusively on worldwide trading price. Very few Americans are able to see more than a year or so into the future because they’re too hyper-focused on getting through each week or month. It’s why Republican tax cuts work so well, they give a small tax cut to individuals that will expire in 3-4 years when might not be in power, and if they are, they just pass another. Meanwhile permanent cuts to those most able to afford it, are hidden behind that, and inflate the tax cut number so it looks like the tiny cut the average person sees is actually a lot larger.
And all of this is reinforced by a propaganda network through a nearly unregulated media landscape. The regulation is on old broadcast channels, regulated under the FCC, as little as that regulation is now. And even then, most of those shows now are opinion shows, not actual “news” segments, so the regulation is even lower. Cable channels, don’t have those regulations, and never have. Fox News for instance, not a broadcast network, it is a separate channel from Fox. Even then, Fox News only has “news” segments for an hour or two each day. Everything else is opinion shows, on a “news” channel. So it makes it seem like everything on the channel is news, which should theoretically not be an inherent lie. And every time they’re called out, they point to the actual hour or two of actual news as a cover. They try to hide any required apologies or corrections they couldn’t snake their way out of into a tiny sliver of time within in that hour with fewer viewers instead of the same show it happened.
There are the people you’re talking about, but they’re still a minority. Voter turnout in the US was only about 63.5% of the eligible population in 2024. Of that, Trump got about 50.2% of the votes. So that’s 31.8% of voting eligible Americans voting for Trump. That is a minority no matter how you cut it, regardless of reasons or individual issues. American politics is regularly decided by less than 1/3rd of the population because of how our election system operates.
You assume people WANT to talk or even think about politics at all. Most people DON’T GIVE A SHIT. They actively try to AVOID politics. They don’t think it affects their daily lives. And to be honest, they’re right. 90% of government changes have no direct affect on their lives, nearly all effects are indirect. Unless the government is directly giving individual tax breaks, or stimulus payments, the effect of policy is hidden behind companies making changes in response.
They think various parts of the government have either a lot more, or a lot less power than they actually do. Many for whatever reason seem to think the President has ANY control on gas prices at all because that bullshit is repeated every time gas prices go up, a commodity with a price based almost exclusively on worldwide trading price. Very few Americans are able to see more than a year or so into the future because they’re too hyper-focused on getting through each week or month. It’s why Republican tax cuts work so well, they give a small tax cut to individuals that will expire in 3-4 years when might not be in power, and if they are, they just pass another. Meanwhile permanent cuts to those most able to afford it, are hidden behind that, and inflate the tax cut number so it looks like the tiny cut the average person sees is actually a lot larger.
And all of this is reinforced by a propaganda network through a nearly unregulated media landscape. The regulation is on old broadcast channels, regulated under the FCC, as little as that regulation is now. And even then, most of those shows now are opinion shows, not actual “news” segments, so the regulation is even lower. Cable channels, don’t have those regulations, and never have. Fox News for instance, not a broadcast network, it is a separate channel from Fox. Even then, Fox News only has “news” segments for an hour or two each day. Everything else is opinion shows, on a “news” channel. So it makes it seem like everything on the channel is news, which should theoretically not be an inherent lie. And every time they’re called out, they point to the actual hour or two of actual news as a cover. They try to hide any required apologies or corrections they couldn’t snake their way out of into a tiny sliver of time within in that hour with fewer viewers instead of the same show it happened.
There are the people you’re talking about, but they’re still a minority. Voter turnout in the US was only about 63.5% of the eligible population in 2024. Of that, Trump got about 50.2% of the votes. So that’s 31.8% of voting eligible Americans voting for Trump. That is a minority no matter how you cut it, regardless of reasons or individual issues. American politics is regularly decided by less than 1/3rd of the population because of how our election system operates.