Civic Enthusiasm

Do you feel that the general population is invested enough in politics and well-informed? How about specific demographics? What can we do to ensure that the coming generations of voters are actively involved in politics? Is this even important?

All that stuff. Have at it.

I don't feel like people are informed well, or invested enough. Especially here in Australia there's a fairly big problem that sort of thing.

It just breeds populism and lets people think out of left field people like Pauline Hanson and Trump either have their best interests at heart or have good policies, when it's very very clear to anyone politically engaged enough to actually look and understand that they're not?

I'm pretty sure Trump won because he ran his campaign like a reality TV show... "Oh my gawd did you hear what Trump said on FOX news!" And became popular that way (and by lying about bringing jobs back) so my answer would be..... No?

I find people just don't care about politics here. I doubt most people I know could tell me what the Presidential Cabinet does.

I'd love to see people get even a little more vested in politics myself.

Aliencommander1245 said:

I don't feel like people are informed well, or invested enough. Especially here in Australia there's a fairly big problem that sort of thing.

It just breeds populism and lets people think out of left field people like Pauline Hanson and Trump either have their best interests at heart or have good policies, when it's very very clear to anyone politically engaged enough to actually look and understand that they're not?

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Arsenic said:

I'm pretty sure Trump won because he ran his campaign like a reality TV show... "Oh my gawd did you hear what Trump said on FOX news!" And became popular that way (and by lying about bringing jobs back) so my answer would be..... No?

I find people just don't care about politics here. I doubt most people I know could tell me what the Presidential Cabinet does.

I'd love to see people get even a little more vested in politics myself.

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I pretty much agree with you two.
The question then is, what can we do to improve this situation?

Personally I think we need to do more to get students involved with and interested in politics - starting from the ground up. Man schools here offer Politics and Law as an elective in years eleven and twelve but there's not really any ground work to lead into that or anything.

Psh. No. Our Education system is a mess, and common core isn't doing what it's supposed to be doing, if you are here, you already know that.

Okay. Now I have a little more grievance than I used to. Is the US really all that interesting for those that cannot vote within the country? I mean, I'm well rehearsed in my own political system and I don't typically need or want to bother with a country's decision that leaves most of the US out of it, like Sweden or Finland for example. If you don't live here or actually know the laws or penal codes, please at least acknowledge that each country is different. Further more, each state has differing laws to each other, to make it even more confusing. That's 50 territories, all with their own individual rules.

Lovely.

JDJacket said:

Psh. No. Our Education system is a mess, and common core isn't doing what it's supposed to be doing, if you are here, you already know that.

Okay. Now I have a little more grievance than I used to. Is the US really all that interesting for those that cannot vote within the country? I mean, I'm well rehearsed in my own political system and I don't typically need or want to bother with a country's decision that leaves most of the US out of it, like Sweden or Finland for example. If you don't live here or actually know the laws or penal codes, please at least acknowledge that each country is different. Further more, each state has differing laws to each other, to make it even more confusing. That's 50 territories, all with their own individual rules.

Lovely.

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The difference between Finland and the US is Finland is highly unlikely to drag half of Europe to another war in the East with it. What America does effects everyone in the west, as such, we have a far more vested interest in your politics than you may have in ours.

TV news, the internet, and social media make it very easy to never leave your information comfort zone, though the reach of such a zone is probably a lot wider than people who didn't have our technology years ago. So maybe we're no better overall than the people of our parents' and grandparent's generations. More options, but more echo chambers.

Personally I've tried to get my news from a variety of places. I read the BBC website and use Google News to get a taste of what the mainstream is talking about, and then I also have my independent news source, particularly The Young Turks who I donated money to. I know they have a bias, but they're open about their bias, and for a left/progressive bias they do have a variety of viewpoints (for instance, people who were pushing Clinton and others who were pushing Stein during the election).

Hands said:

The difference between Finland and the US is Finland is highly unlikely to drag half of Europe to another war in the East with it. What America does effects everyone in the west, as such, we have a far more vested interest in your politics than you may have in ours.

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Also, Americans are generally not very well-versed or well-traveled outside of their country so most don't even know about things going on in other countries.

Esper said:

. . .particularly The Young Turks who I donated money to. I know they have a bias, but they're open about their bias, and for a left/progressive bias they do have a variety of viewpoints (for instance, people who were pushing Clinton and others who were pushing Stein during the election)

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This explains a lot, actually.

JDJacket said:

This explains a lot, actually.

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TYT are a far more balanced outlet than most of the MSM. Whilst they have a left bias they never try to hide this and are actually pretty balanced in what they report on. I'd say that the counter to this is RT, who obviously give Russia a bit of a free pass and show bias to them, but overall provide good and astute coverage to the rest of the world.

Hands said:

TYT are a far more balanced outlet than most of the MSM. Whilst they have a left bias they never try to hide this and are actually pretty balanced in what they report on. I'd say that the counter to this is RT, who obviously give Russia a bit of a free pass and show bias to them, but overall provide good and astute coverage to the rest of the world.

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I agree to disagree.

JDJacket said:

I agree to disagree.

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So you are suggesting bought outlets like CNN and Fox offer more accurate and balanced news than TYT and RT?

Well-informed? Not a chance in hell. The problem is, the people are enthusiastic about politics while knowing next to nothing about it. All you have to do is look at the rise and power of fake news on social media to see just how stupid the people really are.

JDJacket said:

This explains a lot, actually.

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Care to elaborate?

Explains... my views, perhaps? I had my views before I found that source. Views that weren't the product of the news I read nor ones that keep me from being critical of news sources even when their bias matches my own. And as I said I have several news sources I go to so my viewing TYT no more explains me than my viewing of BBC or any other outlet.

UndertakerFreak1127 said:

Well-informed? Not a chance in hell. The problem is, the people are enthusiastic about politics while knowing next to nothing about it. All you have to do is look at the rise and power of fake news on social media to see just how stupid the people really are.

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See, I think the problem is more one of apathy among large segments of the population. Based on preliminary turnout numbers, the leading state in voter turnout in the United States, Minnesota, still had just over 1 in every 4 eligible voters not bother to vote this past election, and that's an increase from the roughly 24% that didn't bother to show up in 2012 and the 22% that didn't bother to show up in 2008, neither of those being years Minnesota actually led the nation in voter turnout rates. It's highly likely that those 20 to 25% of people just generally don't care enough even though politics is something that impacts you whether you stay informed or uninformed.

JDJacket said:

I agree to disagree.

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I am legitimately curious as to what you consider a reasonable news source?

And in the interest of making it clear that I'm not defending TYT, TYT is a news show I've pretty much never watched. Maybe a handful of clips over the years, but their personalities tend to rub me the wrong way.

My views morphed independently of any news source. NPR and BBC have sort of evolved into my preferred news services, but I don't get my news from them frequently enough that either could be considered my primary sources.

Hands said:

So you are suggesting bought outlets like CNN and Fox offer more accurate and balanced news than TYT and RT?

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No. I don't believe I ever implied such. I'm pretty leery over a lot of news sources, actually. I find that following the threads laid down by news sources are more credible than the reporters themselves. For example, if there was an 'unarmed' shooting of a black man, I would perhaps look for the actual police report or video rather than take their word for it. Poorly done research and race baiting. The difference between big names like Fox and CNN is that those outlets actually do investigative journalism, while the TYT does not.

This is not a thread to discuss the viability and biases of news outlets.