Jennifer Rubin's column today - [View all]
Opinion | Democrats need to reclaim reality from the right-wing disinformation machine
Disinformation has taken hold over democracy.
Whether you believe that Americans embraced President-elect Donald Trump’s misogynistic, racist and bullying persona because they misunderstood what he stood for or because they liked what he stood for; or because they believed (falsely) that the economy was in a recession or because they could not afford to buy their own home; or because of some combination of all of these, we cannot ignore the success of the right-wing media’s disinformation network in shaping how millions of Americans view the country.
Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer put it succinctly:
“The things that pundits have been talking about since Tuesday — an economy that hasn’t worked for the working class since the time of Ronald Reagan, anxieties among white voters about a potential end to white privilege and the patriarchy, and a Democratic Party that’s lost touch with the great American middle — all factored into this election. But nothing mattered more than this: Donald Trump was returned to power by the most badly informed electorate in modern American history.
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A now much-discussed Reuters-Ipsos poll found that “Americans who primarily get their news from Fox News and Conservative Media and social media/other are more likely to answer questions about inflation and crime incorrectly than Americans writ large.” When tens of millions of Americans believe things that simply are not true, Democrats’ accomplishments matter very little. Their message does not reach the intended audience. And frighteningly, “You can get people to vote away their democracy … as long as you create a false world for them to believe in,” as historian Heather Cox Richardson said.
In the right-wing media’s world, the economy is in a shambles, crime is surging, and kids are being lured into sex-reassignment surgery. In such an atmosphere, Democrats’ positions and proposals become divorced from the public’s perceptions of politics.
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