Published: September 20, 2008 11:05 pm            

STEPHANIE SALTER: Voters of the U.S. get wise; you’ve only your ignorance to lose

TERRE HAUTE — I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

— Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805-1859



Theirs make our blood boil. Ours calm it down.

Theirs are packed with lies, misinformation and innuendo. Ours just tell it like it is.

Political ads. Perhaps you have seen one or two the last few days?

Kathleen Hall Jamieson would like to help all of us, whatever our party affiliation, pick our way through the blizzard of ads and become savvy consumers of political information. That is, if we’ve got the guts to put down our prejudices, abandon some bad habits and actually try to learn something.

Jamieson is an essential part of two of the most remarkable and credible organizations in the United Sates, the Annenberg School for Communications and the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She occupies an endowed professorship in the former and directs the latter. She also has written or co-written 15 books, including “unSpun: Finding Fact in a World of Disinformation.”

Jamieson was in Terre Haute last week to kick off the Indiana State University 2008-09 Speakers Series.

Chief among the bad habits we need to dump, she said, is our tendency to “talk politics” only with people who believe as we do — or watch and read only those information sources that reaffirm our positions.

When we refuse to sincerely discuss candidates and issues or investigate the analyses of people from opposing parties and views, “we never understand others’ opinions.”

That usually leads to reducing great chunks of the population to one dimension, which leads to polarization and, eventually, disenfranchising ourselves through cynical withdrawal from the electoral process.

After all, if the other side is stupid and its political philosophy is “fundamentally dangerous to the United States,” Jamieson conjectured, and that side wins — what’s the point of your side even bothering, ever again?



With PowerPoint images shown to the Tilson Auditorium gathering, Jamieson revealed the bipartisan propaganda that is being peddled this campaign season (and all seasons). She also shot down several common misconceptions about political candidates and politics, in general.

One of the misconceptions: Presidential candidates never keep their promises.

Actually, they do more than they don’t.

Reviewing in detail the last two administrations, Jamieson presented strong evidence that the major issues Bill Clinton and George W. Bush promised to address, they did. While not always successful — say, health-care reform for Clinton, overhauling Social Security for Bush — they were good to their word and tried.

Erroneous beliefs about the political process are among Jamieson’s targeted enemies because they feed mistrust, cynicism and disengagement from democratic participation, she said. That young people by the millions have gotten involved in this presidential election by voting, registering others and educating themselves about candidates gives her major hope.

No matter who young voters choose, “you contributed to a paradigm shift” in voting patterns in the country, she said.

While people 18 to 29 share many concerns with their parents and grandparents, they inherently tend toward more “long-term horizon” issues that will affect them and their children.

If this generation stays engaged and becomes a voting bloc, “politicians will have to deal with you … you would threaten any politician that did not take that long view,” Jamieson said.

Showing a series of ads and a hilarious, but jaded anti-voting JibJab that has swept the Internet, Jamieson illustrated the way political advertising works hard to do our thinking for us.

Rather than encourage the electorate to seek information and compare and contrast, she said, many candidates’ ads end up “making caricatures out of their opponents.” If we’re content to accept that, we can’t get outraged when the same is done to our chosen guy or gal. Nor can we wonder why voter participation dwindles.

“When the level of attack gets strong enough on both sides, you depress voting,” Jamieson said.

The antidote to this poisonous and politically unhealthy environment is the remedy for so many of society’s ills — information.

Thanks to the Internet, access to factual information has never been easier, Jamieson said. What once required long searches through library stacks or basement file rooms in public buildings or trips to Washington, D.C., can be ours in minutes from the World Wide Web.

Free for the searching is the wonderful Annenberg creation, FactCheck.org. Everything from e-mail chains to biographical books is researched and dissected on the site. Jamieson also recommends the Columbia Journalism Review’s Campaign Desk, The Fact-Checker, Politifact and Truth-O-Meter.

In other words, we have no excuse but laziness (and pig-headedness) for making our voting decisions based on stereotypes of conservatives or liberals or this party versus that one. What each of us personally brings to campaign materials, and whatever questions we choose to ask after we view them, will decide whether we are thinkers or manipulated sheep.

“The easiest way to spot deception [in a TV ad] is turn off the sound or just read the text,” Jamieson said.

She also offers some useful tips to help us get the most out of candidates’ debates — a slew of which are coming in the next six weeks. Among her suggestions:

n Bring a list of issues that matter to you to your debate viewing and see how the candidates match up.

n Determine how accurately candidates describe their opponents’ programs and their own record. How do they propose to pay for any programs they offer?

n Notice whether a candidate is willing to tell voters things they don’t want to hear about how hard it may be to fix problems.

And possibly the best advice of all:

n Don’t watch before or after a debate to hear what pundits and so-called experts have to say. Turn off the TV or radio and discuss your impressions with friends and family. You are the one who will cast the ballot; your informed opinion is the only one that matters.

Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com

        

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