Commentary
With Election Day just a couple of weeks away, how can anyone believe that a voter has yet to make up his or her mind about either Trump-Vance or Harris-Walz?
In this era of 24/7 news and various social media outlets, I’m beginning to have misgivings about the knowledge of voters, even though candidates like to say, “American voters are smart.”
Then why can’t Harris supporters name one thing she has accomplished?
As I attempt to make sense of it all, I recall the late Rush Limbaugh’s low information voter theory (LIV), in which he provides insight to a segment of the electorate that approaches elections without adequate information to make an informed decision.
The book on Limbaugh’s career, Radio’s Greatest of All Time, was a reminder of the importance he placed on informing his listeners above the fog of a bias media.
Limbaugh used to target suspected LIV’s in his audience, because the ideological views of most low information voters lean moderate, are less likely to vote, and when they do, they generally vote for a candidate they find personally appealing, giving him an opportunity to move them to conservatism.
Too many journalists are lazy, and simply use campaign talking points rather than do a little digging, and according to Pew Research, over half of adults (54 percent) say they get their news often or sometimes from social media, like Instagram, TikTok or X.
We recognize what’s at stake on November 5. Trump and Harris have both appealed to voters to consider the consequences of this election, but since Harris’s entry on July 21, 2024, the calls for information on her policies were ignored as she stuck to rehearsed lines in appearance after appearance. Her website had been wiped clean.
Only in Harris’s recent interview with Fox’s Bret Baier did we learn that an 80-page outline of her New Way Forward had been added to her website. When I checked it out, each issue was described in a difficult to read tiny font in a single-space format. How can she believe the average voter will take the time to read it, as eager as they may be to learn what she stands for?
There was a single paragraph on immigration, one of the top voter concerns.
Harris should read, A Well-Informed Electorate Is a Prerequisite for Democracy, published by the progressive Century Foundation, in which it states, “People can only make choices if they have access to accurate information concerning society and the government (that’s Vice President Harris) has a special duty to disseminate this information.”
In The Society for Psychological Study of Social Issues abstract of “What do voters know, and why does it matter,” it was noted that, “Overall, issue-specific political knowledge has been found to be an important predictor of vote choice.”
In the study, “The political consequences of uninformed voters,” in ScienceDirect, it is noted that “A lack of knowledge on the policy positions of the parties significantly hinders the ability of low-socioeconomic-status citizens to translate their preferences into partisan opinions and vote choices.
Finally, ponder this … Though not in a presidential election, an uninformed public helped Congress pass the ObamaCare bill in 2014, and Jonathan Gruber of MIT, an architect of the law, said, “Basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”
Sixteen days until Election Day. Consider the consequences of another four years of Kamala Harris, a DEI-selected vice president.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
