‘Exhausted’ Americans are tuning out politics, according to TV ratings and new poll

[u/theindependentonline]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ap-poll-americans-exhausted-politics-b2670238.html

[u/Cormetz]

Also the daily "TRUMP WANTS TO _______" when he isn't even president yet is just exhausting. He's just trolling everyone with the dumbest things possible and everyone is reacting to it (all this crap about Canada and Greenland).

[u/thrawtes → u/Cormetz]

It would be easier to just go with "yeah the POTUS is a silly head, don't listen to anything he says" if the dude hadn't already literally been in charge once and actually done a bunch of crazy shit.

A monkey got ahold of a knife and stabbed a bunch of people. We got it away from him but now he has it back and he's dancing around with it.

Is he trolling us? Absolutely. Can we afford not to pay attention? Nope.

[u/hollylettuce → u/thrawtes]

Eh, as someone who does study politics. In autocratic countries, most people do just tune out political news. When you do not have a say in how the government operates, then you just don't pay attention. This is a bad thing that governments obviously take advantage of, but do understand that it is a form of self care. Reading about your despotic government is extremely mentally taxing at best. Politics in healthy democracies is mentally taxing, but people engage with it because they have a stake in it. When you don't have a stake and the government is just awful 24/7 , people just tune out.

I think people tuning out trump and politics in general can be seen in a somewhat similar light. Trump is an extremely mentally taxing person to listen to. Every day, he says something new that is awful. His opponents can only handle so much disgust before they go to focus on their hobbies. His supporters tune him out because tuning out his bullshit makes it easier to support him. This can apply to other unsavory aspects of our government right now. I don't envy the journalists who have to read and listen to him and his cronies everyday. They literally have to be paid to do that. The fact people still try to pay attention is proof not all is lost at least.

[u/MoreRopePlease → u/hollylettuce]

If the "news" would actually try to educate people on what's going on and why it's important, then I would tune in more. There's no excuse for people not knowing what tariffs are at this point. There's no excuse for the inundation of "trump's policy ideas are horrible" stories that came out in the days after the election, when before the election nobody was trying to warm the electorate.

I vote. I feel helpless and scared. AOC losing the committee vote is discouraging. I'm disappointed Luigi got caught.

[u/hollylettuce → u/MoreRopePlease]

Eh, I talked about this in the poli sci sub, but it's not the job of the news to educate people about civics. Civics class is where you learn what tarriffs are. Obviously we have history class which can also teach you a bit about civics, but it really isn't sufficient at doing that, because its history class. Its a different focus. However in many American schools civics class is not a required course. It wasn't in my highschool. It was just a single semester elective. At best the most civics education most people will recieve is a required intro to government course if they go to university.

This is a gap in knowledge that results in people self educating through the news. Which isn't the job of journalists. It ends up being their job, and its why every election cycle you see news articles explaining the electoral college explaining voter purges, explaining tarriffs, over and over like clock work. It could be remedied somewhat with some education in grade school. But we all know parents would complain about "indoctrination" if their kids were required to take a government class.