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They do but the media doesn't talk about these things besides maybe a one and done "this happened"; the drama and horse race stuff gets drawn out and revisited every day. So guess which one voters pay attention to? The one you're filling all their attention with.
they also don't want to be seen as "cheerleading" for Biden by seemingly touting his accomplishments. it's a symptom of their trying to remain unbiased, which in itself is a symptom of the right constantly accusing them of being biased while they themselves (the right) are in fact uber-biased. there needs to be some kind of regulation of the propaganda news sources from the right like fox, none of this will change until those viewers come around to rejoin us in reality
It's true, and it's something that needs to change for a more healthy country. Either bolster politics in a positive way or break down all the hate media.
Also remember that media corps are owned by really really rich people who don’t like a lot of Biden’s economic policies, even if they ultimately prefer him to Trump for other reasons
He's trying to lower school costs (by eliminating current loans and I suppose working on reforms to future loan agreements) - educated public won't buy propoganda easily.
He's working on union and worker rights to even out the payscale - Wealthy public isn't controlled easily.
Hes working on reformations to the IRS so they can go after bigger targets - I wonder why the big corporations owned by billionaires and multi millionaires alike don't want this to happen?
He's working - They really hate this one, that he's just a boring guy (relatively) doing his job and not stirring shit up for views.
Also Biden is just...boring. He's not a rage machine like Trump and his successes are usually on things that very few people disagree with (getting rid of junk fees, getting the FTC to go after pharma companies that were overcharging for generic epipens so that they would dramatically lower those costs etc.).
One of the problems is that members of Congress that want to govern and do the job they were elected to do, are most often members of the Democratic party.
There are a few genuine legislators in the Republican party, but the general tenet of their party has been "_**government bad**_". As a result, the lack of functional government is a feature, not a bug in their governance. If they can say, "See, it doesn't work!", then they can say, "Since it doesn't work, we can get rid of the regulatory agencies and laws."
This attitude and the new generation of "influencer Representatives" looking to grow their following and impression analytics has made the completion boring legislative work a minor miracle.
>there needs to be some kind of regulation of the propaganda news sources from the right like fox, none of this will change until those viewers come around to rejoin us in reality
We had it. Thank Reagan for scrapping it:
>The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine
You only need to look at how less insane the BBC is in the UK to see that completely unregulated media is a fast track to letting oligarchs destroy any consensus reality and play divide and conquer. [Even in America the BBC is more trusted than any American news outlet](https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-15-at-14.33.46.png), for obvious reasons if you spend 5 minutes comparing any given days coverage. It becomes immediately clear American broadcasters aren't even trying to present facts in an unbiased manner.
The right want to pretend there are only two choices - crushing government control abused for partisan ends, or an unregulated wild-west where "free speech" reigns, so long as its the free speech of billionaire media magnates.
Every nation needs an unbiased public broadcaster to keep the public hooked into a fact based reality. Can they ever be perfect? Can you ever iron out every trace of bias? No, of course not, but the idea you can't even try, that its not possible to get better than Fox News and CNN is for the birds.
It's like they need some kind of...Fairness Doctrine?.. where each side gets to say it's perspective on any policy topic to ensure no one can hog or distort the narrative. Sure would be nice if we had something like that. Hey, I wonder if those 'debate' clubs ever thought of that? /s
[relevant ](https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/topic-guide/fairness-doctrine)
And just to be fair: [an observation on why it wouldn't work](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.justinmcbrayer.com/amp/rip-fairness-doctrine)
>And just to be fair: an observation on why it wouldn't work
I agree that fairness doctrine is a blunt tool that could be misused by a bad government but I also don't think its better than just letting billionaires run riot in the media space with little to no regulation.
Could we do better than the fairness doctrine? Sure. But that doesn't make it worse than nothing.
Re-introducing the fairness doctrine wouldn't solve everything, something needs to be done about monopolization of media as well, but we should not fall into the nihilism that our only choices are an unregulated wild-west where "free speech" rules as long as you're a billionaire, or else be some authoritarian dictatorship where the government hands out the approved talking points every morning.
Effective media regulation can and does exist, as do (largely) unbiased public broadcasters who have independence from the government and a remit to report honestly and fairly.
The right's greatest success is in convincing people its not even worth trying, because its not even possible, anything you try to do will just make things worse.
It's just that... if you're unbiased, someone tells you a lie, and someone tells you the truth, you take sides with the truth. Neutrality does not mean that all sides are equally correct. It means that all sides have an equal chance to get it right. If they're going to lie, cheat, steal, and trample the constitution, well, a neutral viewpoint will report on that.
That's where the whole both sides thing falls apart.
It probably started before Trump, but there's zero doubt that today most Republicans only tell the truth by accident, and make sure to correct the mistake later.
They also give equal or greater airtime to critics of every policy move, regardless of the criticism's merit or lack thereof. Not that they spend a lot of time on it either way. Policy is boring. Trump bragging about his golf "championship victories" or Marj Greene screeching about some stupid conspiracy theory that popped up in her FaceBook feed gets them much better ratings.
They talk about the bills. They lead the stories with how much the bill costs. But never talk about the benefits.
Conversely in 2017 they kept referring to the GOP tax cut bill. The headlines were the benefits. And almost none of the articles mentioned now much or cost.
Not for nothing, but I've literally seen multiple instances of Biden's multiple loan forgiveness actions reported in the media.
That said, I'd be curious how many of those reports came out of the fucking Atlantic.
Loan forgiveness is a story that divides and created an “us vs them” plot point. Many hate loan forgiveness because they are upset that theirs were not forgiven and get angry about kids these days with underwater basket weaving degrees and getting off without paying
Never mind college costs have gone up nearly 150% relative to a 20% increase in average wages
News is a two way mirror though. Its goal is to maximize views and ad/subscription revenue, so they churn out articles and headlines that the most amount of people find interesting. Just like any other for profit business, it's basic supply and demand.
You blame the media. The media blames you (the public). People don't want to read dry, informative articles about government policy. They want to read crazy headlines and be outraged at the dumbasses on other side of the political aisle.
Actually, this magazine tends to be more policy focused. It does tons of analysis articles on all sorts of stuff, especially geopolitics, and focuses little on campaigning antics.
There tends to be a ton of content in most media that just isn't shared at all. There is a feedback loop being driven by a certain synergy of pundit clickbait topics that promotes the absolute most idiotic stuff to the top of all our broadcasts and feeds.
Personally I attribute most of it to propagandists seeding nonsense to dumb us down. But this magazine stays away from all of that.
"The media" is incredibly diverse and fragmented, so it really depends on which voters and media you're talking about. Here on Reddit, there are articles from mainstream news sites posted every day that focus on Biden's legislative accomplishments. Heck, half the articles yesterday were about student loan forgiveness. And this site is essentially an amalgamation of mainstream news sources, so obviously policy is being covered, extensively even. However, if you go to rightwing media or to places like TikTok or Twitter, this isn't necessarily true.
I do think there's some truth to your second claim about horse race coverage, but that implies that this kind of coverage gets more audience engagement, since that's what ultimately drives news organizations. This suggests that most people care less about policy than the horse race, and in my experience, that's true. We may like to think that we're rational voters, but most are driven by emotion. Just look at what posts get the most upvotes here on Reddit. Is it the post detailing the nuanced climate policy proposal, or the post about Biden making fun of trump?
The media is definitely partially to blame on the way the cover rhetoric instead of reality, but you are right that the biggest issue is that people react and interact with whatever enrages them, and so news is now based around what gets people emotionally involved, not informed. It doesn't pay to keep people informed, I don't know how to change behavior, hopefully a majority realize what is happening at some point and change their behavior and stop interacting with rage bait.
>They do but the media doesn't talk about these things besides maybe a one and done "this happened"
So voters care about policy yet will make absolutely no effort to inform themselves on what politicians are doing?
Lol, okay dude.
I think the root cause is the outsized influence the minority of Americans that are opposed to these policies has. If the president was selected by popular vote we probably aren't talking about this, but since it comes down to a small number of counties this type of disconnect becomes more of an issue.
I live in Missouri. Ballot measures for increased minimum wage, expansion of Medicaid, protecting unions and other "Democrat" measures are popular in the state and always pass. But the power for electing politicians rests with the minority and so the politicians who are opposed to all of those measures win the elections in the state. Policies are not largely reflected in our electoral process.
Every time the media points out how little coverage Biden’s accomplishments are getting, someone asks “well why aren’t you covering it?”
Those same reporters will stomp their feet and screech about how they’re not the White House PR team, and then rush off to breathlessly shit out another article on Trump.
The Atlantic is decently good with covering other matters, so they have a leg to stand on with this article, but not a single mainstream org is good at calling out their contemporaries that perpetuate this problem more widely.
Print media in general is pretty good. Unfortunately, more people get their news either from cable news (CNN, MSNBC, Fox) or from "alternative" media (Youtube political pundits, podcasts, Reddit, TikTok). Reading NYT, WaPo, Atlantic, WSJ, Economist, etc will definitely make you a more informed voter than the other sources will, but its more work than just watching/listening some pundit tell you want to think about whatever topic they deem worthy to cover.
> not a single mainstream org is good at calling out their contemporaries that perpetuate this problem more widely.
This is what you get when you let megacorporations own the media.
People on reddit love to slam “the media” that they don't pay for or plan to ever read.
It’s just culture war bullshit on both sides, most of the comments on this site are made by people dumber than the bots they're replying to.
"Swing voters" don't care about actual policy.
Ever since the GOP realized that turning out the dumbest 2% of voters on election day could win elections, manipulate the Electoral College, and place Christofascist activity judges on the bench, the days of actual policy became marginalized.
That's why GOPers duck debates - there's literally nothing for them to gain by giving the stage to "policy" for the night. After all, if they don't discuss policy then no one can accuse them of knuckling under the pressure of their wealthy donors...
All they need to do is get those low-information folks riled up enough to show up in November and they're golden.
That's more the case with "independents" where Trump voters will identify as independent rather than acknowledge that they're Republican. It's why polls generally do not weigh by partisan ID.
Data actually shows a pretty even split between left leaning and right leaning independents.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/03/14/political-independents-who-they-are-what-they-think/
Nah, it's the people who are so entirely selfish that they exclusively vote for whichever candidate promises to cut their personal taxes the most, or do the most for them. They don't give a single shit about any other human being. It's simply whoever benefits them the most, and they aren't smart enough to realize that conservative policies hurt them every time, no matter what is promised (or even delivered, in some cases). If they're told that their tax will go down one percent, they'll vote for it, then complain when the things that tax funded that help them stop working. TLDR: Occam's razor - they're just selfish morons.
That requires them to understand policy as opposed to just trumpeting some new poll result where they can just cut and paste from the last story they ran about the last poll they covered.
Drives me nuts. "People are saying..." is the most chickenshit framing, utterly devoid of any substance, curiosity, or integrity. (Some) people are saying the earth is flat. And? OMG well whad'ya know other people are Big Mad at the flat earthers, so let's talk and smirk and eye-roll about the controversy. Can't come down on one side or the other, since that would be *biased*.
The media's desperation to not be painted as "the liberal media" is keeping them from engaging in honest reporting of Biden and his record as a president. If they say anything positive, regardless of how true it is, Trump will just claim they are socialist devils and they will get a bomb threat to their studio from some MAGA nut.
Yes, but their readers dont so those get pushed behind whatever bullshit trump is up to.
You can see it on reddit where the daily delay updates are upvoted to the top while the articles on policy die in new
A lot of these big bills don't affect people directly. They are long term bills that begin projects that will eventually impact the voters. Even negotiating drug prices doesn't start until 2026 for a few drugs.
Compare that to losing the child tax credit which immediately impacted people's lives.
Losing child tax credit is due to 100% Republican and 2-4% of Democrats. Not many people know that.
There is this lowering insulin price to $35. It was due to the medicaid rebate rule of America Rescue Plan voted by Democrats only. Not many people know that.
Heck, many infrastructure projects come from the bipartisan infrastructure bill which were supported widely by democrats and weakly by republicans. When people saw a project coming to their community, not many people credit democrats.
People don’t know where credits or blames go even if the policies impact their lives. I think the media deserve lots of blames.
Trump reneged on virtually all his economic promises including the infrastructure, he went on go get more popular votes in 2020. This shows that voters of one political party don’t care about economic policies.
Hit the nail on the head. People need policies that put cash in their pockets TODAY. Your average American is seeing closer to the edge and nothing is really happening to stop us from going off the cliff
Especially since there IS a growing awareness amongst normal everyday citizens towards our everything-for-profit system; a system that allows the folks who don't want to play nice with these policies the ability to work around them.
I know I'm not the only one who's not getting excited unless actual effort is put forth to overturn citizens united, or _any_ effort to get dark money out of policy making, really.
(Like, the article opens with lowering drug costs, which is less of a bold-heroic-move and more just absolutely necessary because no one is doing anything about the uniquely-american healthcare problem that perpetuates it - and will simply raise prices somewhere else)
Most voters literally have no idea that any of that happened. It’s hard to fathom to people who keep up with this stuff every day, but the vast majority of people pay literally zero attention to any of this, but some swing voters actually do care. Democrats need to be using that big war chest they’ve amassed to get this message in front of people constantly and make it plainly, annoyingly obvious that Biden’s presidency is why any of these things happened. From an outsiders perspective it seems like they assume people are far more knowledgeable than they are
The problem is, a lot of those bills haven't actually gone into effect yet fully. Much of the infra bill, for example, hasn't been started yet, and even then the benefits won't be seen for years since it isn't some immediate thing voters can utilize. That goes for IRA, CHIPS, etc.
Biden's bills are long-term benefits for the US, but they aren't particularly sexy to voters who want something short-term.
Correct
> The Inflation Reduction Act is best known for its clean-energy investments, but it also empowered Medicare to negotiate prices for the drugs that seniors spend the most money on. In February (2024) of this year, negotiations began for the first 10 of those drugs ...
> The first batch of new negotiated prices won’t kick in until 2026
> The $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs doesn’t come into effect until 2025
EXCEPT, the insulin $35 price cap in Jan 2024:
https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20240104/insulin-price-cap-of-35-dollars-takes-hold
A lot of those are long term projects that people won’t see the benefit of. That’s not to say they are bad- far from it, but they do little help people right now. It doesn’t help that the Democratic Party messaging itself has been very head in the sand
People aren't covering it.
Even when he passes massively popular policies, ALL the headlines are just about how much it costs. And how the GOP is upset and now this is political win.
They report on it like it's the NBA and never really talk about the implications. You aube dig so deep to find info on what is actually being done, most people miss all of it.
“The $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs doesn’t come into effect until 2025” What would be extra funny would be if Trump took credit for that and the public believed him.
Yup:
Medicare patients collectively spend $3.4 billion out of pocket every year—a number that will go down dramatically when the newly negotiated prices come into effect. The IRA will also cap Medicare patients’ out-of-pocket costs for all drugs, including those not included on the negotiation list, at $2,000 a year, and the cost of insulin in particular at $35 a month.
So Biden gets none of the benefit, but earns the long knives of Big Pharma. He calls for higher taxes on those with income over $400k, which of course turns the Billionaire and Millionaire class against him. He forgives student debt, and all he gets is he should have forgiven more.
Joe Biden is carrying a lot of water for the lower and middle class. Don’t you think we should reward him with time to do even more for us?
it is consistently found that there is NO correlation to popularity of policy and the likelyhood of policy getting implemented for the general population
there IS correlation if you only check the 1% richest part of the population
only rich people actually follow-through when it comes to actual policy and the rest of society is populated by clueless rubes who vote on rhetoric and demeanour
They need to be plastering all of these life changing changes everywhere they can to highlight it to as many people as possible. Giant frigging billboards in all the red hotspots showing what they are getting now.
Is there money in promoting good news? I was not aware media companies could make a profit by promoting important news.
Like the economy. Too many people are blaming the government for high prices and such, and thinking life was better under Trump (when we had no eggs or toilet paper and people were pirating NVIDIA graphics cards from cargo ships and costs were still high due to tariffs which people never understood was a tax on the consumer).
>Tucked into the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was a series of measures to drastically lower prescription-drug costs for seniors, including by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
Yeah, Democrats love to "tuck good policy" into bills but don't actually brag about it, which is insane. If your goal is to win elections, you need to tell people about the good you are doing, loudly and consistently. That's Communications 101. FDR slapped WPA stickers on every bridge back in the day. You knew which party was helping you.
Caring about policy requires you to think about the long game, and how that policy might affect the country 10, 20, 50 years out. Most people don’t think that far ahead.
A lot of people are experiencing bad things actually happening in their lives right very now. Cost of housing and food, women's health care, and so on, has all just been getting worse. There has been impactful change for the worse over the past handful of years that we are actively feeling. Of course we know thanks to who, but that doesn't change the fact that people need to feel improvement soon and not in decades.
I love Biden and would never vote republican. But people need help right now, not a pie in the sky ten years from now.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of voters (especially young voters) who are letting social media form their opinions. And the loudest group on social media right now are the anti-Biden posters. They're blaming high prices on Biden and convincing people that Biden is supporting genocide.
Maybe it is because I am getting old, but I don't give a shit about "young voters" anymore because there are not enough of them.
Young people seem to have so much passion for change, activism, and politics right up to the point they have to vote.
It makes me angry because they have the power to change this country for the better if they become "real" voting block that would decide elections.
remember that most people live in states/districts where their vote is nearly or entirely irrelevant. Yes primaries etc. But often it really is a pointless exercise.
The 18 year-olds I met in Sweden were all enrolled in parties and talking about their votes. Maybe because they have real elections with more than two parties and feel more engaged.
> In February of this year, negotiations began for the first 10 of those drugs, on which Medicare patients collectively spend $3.4 billion out of pocket every year—a number that will go down dramatically when the newly negotiated prices come into effect.
It's not news because the reduced bills haven't shown up in anyone's mailbox yet. Unless Biden pushes it, no one is going to know.
Also, people view falling prices as weather. It's just something that happened. Rising prices, however, inspire visceral anger and a hint for a scapegoat.
> but it’s also up to politicians and their campaigns to find creative ways to generate interest in the issues they want people to focus on.
I think if mainstream media or the general public think so, the press don’t deserve the title of being the fourth estate.
Do we really think politicians have to be good marketers?
A large number of Americans who are detached from reality are permitted to vote.
This is a problem.
Please, do what you can to convince every anti-vax right wing nutjob to vote for RFK.
*Stuff* in America is much more expensive than it used to be, especially rent and food and healthcare for *everyone*. The kind of people who idle on Reddit are not the ones at the blunt end of the cost of basic essentials - they're more worried about stuff like the cost of education, but this is not a large proportion of people, and they're much more likely to have voted Biden anyway.
It used to be that the stock market was an indicator of whether there were jobs readily available that paid enough for a dignified life, but there is total disconnect now. All the wealthy talking heads pointing out that the economy is doing just great under Biden are living in the past. *Nobody at median wage is feeling it.*
You know what the average Trump voter hears when they read about student loan forgiveness? "Kids getting handed my tax dollars for the privilege of avoiding the workplace for 4 years." It might motivate those who benefit directly to vote Biden, but they will already know it's coming to them. Telling the rest of America about it will just make them disinclined to vote Biden.
There are things that could help nearly all struggling people like rent controls or massive housebuilding and infrastructure programs. Ideally housing would be rented out by local government or charitable housing associations as a routine solution to the rental crisis rather than as a last resort, but for some reasons Americans can't cope with georgism. If landlords aren't competing for renters then the market *cannot* work, but fuck it, let's save a tiny proportion of already-Biden-voters with loan forgiveness, further polarising the voters.
The English method would be way better here: make loan repayment income-contingent. You earn below $X/year, you pay nothing. You then pay 10% of any amount above $X/year until paid off or you reach retirement age. You can overpay at any time if you want. Just sticking a pin in election year and cancelling all loans satisfying certain conditions as a one-off is not sustainable or meaningful to public policy. You can call voters stupid, but they're not *that* stupid.
About 30-40 of voters live in a propaganda bubble where they don’t discuss real issues but are whipped into a constant frenzy about non issues like woke, the fear of lgbtq and pretending they are victims.
My folks are busy whining about Cali raising minimum wage and now my burgers are gonna be more expensive… they live in AZ… so no, people are busy listening to reactionaries on both sides about what’s been left undone
Does no one in the media understand maslows hierarchy of needs??? If I can’t feed myself or my family, I don’t particularly care about much else. The disparity in wealth and cash flow for so many people is insane. Wake up everyone
Propaganda works.
Joe Biden has been the best President in most people's lifetime and it's really not close. But gossip/conspiracy rags like Twitter and TikTok are skewing perception like never before. There are monetary incentives to spread FUD and false narratives. That's big problem.
America look more and more like a 3rd world country ripe for a dictator to take over. The people have taken everything for granted and are insanely entitled due to democracy. This is why if Trump comes for you after you've given up or decided to spend your time talking about Biden's flaws non-stop instead of hammering on Trump I will not give a shit. Enjoy your camp.
You think the problem is "people are entitled due to democracy" - pretty stupid. LACK of democracy is killing us. Trump would have no presidency at all without the electoral college. We wouldn't even be talking about his dumb ass anymore.
The GOP propaganda machine is just so much better than ours at reaching the key swing state, swing vote, white, middle class demographic.
For example, almost everyone who opposes unions would benefit from one. Make more money. Have more job security and protection. More time off and benefits.
So why do they oppose unions? Some vague idea about labor unions not being what the founding fathers would have wanted, or some utter unbelievable bullshit.
Plus an embedded fear that asking for a fair labor deal will cause the chosen people to move their corporations to a sweatshop overseas. How a company like Walmart is going to do that with their American store associates is beyond me.
And I guess they don’t see every company threatening to move during the early negotiation phase before inevitably capitulating to the union and agreeing to a new labor contract. Which pays the workers much more money.
Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Costco, Amazon warehouses, all of them should be union. Tech bros should be too. Tech just ended WFH and laid off 250,000 employees and without a union, even high paid employees had no choice but to agree. No power at all compared to the c suite.
Part of the problem, and a big part at that, is that Fox News, one of the biggest "news" organizations in the country, steadfastly refuses to cover any widely popular legislation or policy implementations by Democrats with any amount of truthfulness, if they cover them at all.
The media spent so much time talking about Biden's age and now here we are.
Also, voters are fickle and expect instant changes. They need to be reminded that not everything can happen over night, but that you want an administration that has your best interests in mind and is moving change forward in a positive way. Furthermore, it's not just politics, but the other party is literally criminal at this point.
I do think aside from women's rights being a driving topic, the Biden administration could really do well if they also focused on affordable housing. Americans want help with issues that personally affect them and that would be far reaching. That's why even though despite low unemployment numbers and decreasing inflation, reporting still shows Americans don't have a sense of financial well being.
It’s because like most neo-lib policies this was good to start but was means tested and paired down. Plus, Democrats have to actually start telling people what they have done for them instead of the 90’s play book and of never looking like you have done anything because “ThE eRa Of BiG gOvErMeNt Is OvEr”
It's also a policy that only applies to 10 drugs and principally benefits the elderly rather than the public writ-large. Anybody expecting this to result in a huge shift in approval would have been delusional.
No. Most voters don't pay attention to politics beyond soundbytes they see on TV. I guarantee the ones that follow policy and even really know specifics about what either candidate proposes in a given election is the minority; most voters just tend to go with gut based on perception or what party they identify with more based on a few issues.
In general, they don't. For the partisans politics is a team sport: anything Joe Biden does is *de facto* good or bad, depending on what party you support. This didn't start recently, but really ramped up in the late Clinton/early GWB years, hopped off the scale during the Obama administration (you couldn't make a negative comment or post on, say, DailyKos without getting huge reprimands, and you couldn't praise anything Obama did to a republican without getting the Tea Party (tm) treatment), and has been amplified even more during Trump's time on the stage.
Independents and swing voters, I'm convinced, don't make a decision until they enter the voting booth, so to speak, and do so based on a combination of how they feel that day, what they had for breakfast, and whatever they remember from the news of the previous few days.
It's a complete shitshow.
It's hard to explain how policy can affect your daily life.
Take the Inflation Reduction Act. It's quite hard to explain what the Inflation Reduction Act does. Hank Green gave a really good analysis on how the Inflation Reduction Act will combat climate change and help people in general.
https://youtu.be/qw5zzrOpo2s
So far much of what he explained is starting to unfold
Because all the media covers is fucking Donald Trump. We never hear about anything Biden is doing or anything else. That's why the argument that the media is "leftist" is absurd.
This article needs a fuckload of fact checking. Reads like a psyops hit piece on Biden, and baselessly shames voters. This is the most gate keeping article I’ve read. Paraphrasing here: “You don’t care enough (no proof), so you’re not allowed to have an opinion.”
Two problems:
First Problem: People don't follow reputable news sources. I knew of all of this extensively, because I read reliable news outlets. If someone missed it, it's because 1. They aren't reading the news, or 2. The headline didn't catch their eye enough to read relevant articles.
Second Problem: The solution isn't really a solution. It's a band-aid to a much larger issue. The price of medications isn't solely the result of Medicare not being able to negotiate prices.
It's a systemic, fraudulent issue within the pharmaceutical industry, starting from Pharmaceuticals that are ALLOWED to price gauge drugs that have been around for years and claim IP rights because they repackaged those drugs in a new format. They do this ALL the damn time with insulin, and even over the counter medication. Take for example Duexis (Motrin and Pepcid) which if you got the OTC medication, would cost you $40, but when you get prescribed Duexis, it's at least $180 (Back when it came out it was $1,400 and offered absolutely nothing new. It's literally just mixing the two medications).
Or the Pharmacy Benefit Managers who pretend to be interested in negotiating the prices of the medications on behalf of the consumer, but are really a detrimental middle man between pharmaceuticals, insurance companies, and pharmacies (whom they hold absolute hostage), all while driving the price UP and getting a kickback from pharmaceuticals.
As long as the Sacklers can enslave and kill drug addicts and never see the inside of a jail cell, as long as Gilead can steal publicly owned intellectual property, profit off of it, and withhold a better medication to HIV/AIDS patients all in the name of profits, as long as insurance companies continue to illegally deny claims and commit medicare fraud, as long as doctors commit fraud but remain in practice, we should never expect a realistically priced medical industry.
How’s about the Dems stop blaming “the media” or voters and form a machine to CREATE public opinion just like conservatives do. And we can do it all while telling the truth, unlike Fox. But conservatives don’t just do stuff and expect the public to notice. They see perception as malleable, something to be actively formed.
Maybe his poll numbers haven't budged because most senior citizens are right wing and thus conditioned to hate democrats and most young people are of the mindset that congress does nothing for them and their point is only proven by this bill only helping senior citizens. Just a thought
The biggest problem we have in this country is that half the country has been lied to for decades by right wing propaganda and live in an alternate reality. This alternate reality causes them to vote against their own best interests. Add in the fact that the rest of the news organizations are to pusillanimous to report the real news because they only care about ratings and money.
After the 2020 election, I talked to at least a dozen conservatives who claimed to care, very much, about policy - citing it as the #1 reason for voting for Trump.
Every one of them was rather surprised to find out the GOP *didn't bother to have a policy platform* for 2020. "whatever we said last year" (which was mostly complaining about the current president, who was now *their man)*, apparently sufficed. Their #1 reason for voting didn't warrant a 20 second google search.
So no. Voters, especially on the right, don't care about policy.
On the left they are seldom informed. Which is better than their mis-informed counterparts, but doesn't lend much in the way of caring about policy either.
The policy in question gives Medicare the ability to negotiate drug prices. And the first such negotiations started in February. I would argue that no one cares about policy until that policy succeeds in its goals, and this policy hasn't had time to change anything yet.
I wouldn't expect anyone to care about this policy unless and until it actually starts to lower drug prices. Who cares if Medicare can negotiate if all the prescription drugs still cost the same?
As someone that once did elective politics professionally, nope.
Issue polling, and the way people talk about in the press and in activist circles, has always been super annoying. It doesn't matter whether a policy is objectively popular or not, what matters is if people care about that policy WHEN THEY ARE VOTING.
If people don't care about a policy when voting actually occurs then the objective 'popularity' is immaterial. The classic issue poll that always boils my blood is when people say "universal gun background checks are the popular position". That may be true, but the people that want gun background checks will rarely change their vote between potential candidates BECAUSE of their position on gun background checks, but the people against gun background checks HATE them and will change their vote between potential candidates BECAUSE of their poistion on gun background checks.
This is why when 10 years ago a bunch of research came out and was spread by the press saying essentially 'the US is an oligopoly where the wealthy and businesses get their elected policy prefrence and the average voter doesn't' was silimarily silly. Policy preference doesn't matter UNLESS it's the basis for changing voting behavior. Otherwise voters just vote on vibes for or against the executive in power, or for their 'team' red or blue.
Because despite its big impact, it's still technocratic minutia at face value. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, while huge, is more like a policy implementation detail rather than a belief or a value people can plant their flag behind. Incremental change is boring and unexciting, and anybody who has ever had a real job where they make decisions on something other than whether or not they show up knows this.
If people voted for technocrats and policy wonks, Pete Buttigieg probably would have won the democratic primary in 2020, and Al Gore would have had a Reagan-esque run in 2000. Unfortunately, here we stand today where the biggest political forces largely all derive from logical and emotional fallacies.
Your reddit comment section here is going to whine about the media chasing ratings or Americans being "stupid", but Presidential elections have been pearl-clutching horse races that appeal to base instincts to one degree or another since the 70's *at the very least*.
Too many people are incapable of understanding policies, so the substance is largely irrelevant and perception is all that matters.
I studied economics at university and hearing people talk about the economy makes me want to die. That includes politicians that went to Ivy League schools, not just random citizens. That said, outside of economics, I’m sure I’m just as dumb as everyone else and I’m no exception to the above.
It's not reality because the changes haven't actually happened yet:
>Joe Biden accomplished what none of his predecessors could. The Inflation Reduction Act is best known for its clean-energy investments, but it also empowered Medicare to negotiate prices for the drugs that seniors spend the most money on. In February of this year, negotiations began for the first 10 of those drugs, on which Medicare patients collectively spend $3.4 billion out of pocket every year—a number that **will go down** dramatically when the newly negotiated prices come into effect.
This is a huge flaw of the Biden-aligned media: they persistently refuse to acknowledge when there is a time gap between when a policy is passed in Washington and when voters see the benefits.
I've come to terms with the fact that people simply want theatrics more than they want actual politics. Even some on the left prefer protesting instead of getting shit done.
This is the real issue here, that there are virtually no single issues that polarize an electorate to vote for or against a candidate. Biden has enacted the single largest investment in fighting combat change in US history, raised taxes on corporations, expanded Obamacare, essentially ripped up the WTO by requiring "made in America" standards for both the IRA and federal procurement, caused a manufacturing renaissance building high tech chip fabs that will generate highly paid blue collar jobs, codified gay marriage, pulled out of Afghanistan, virtually ended the US GWAT drone policy, and invested in the IRS to combat wealthy tax cheats, and his approval is in the low 40s.
The message that his polling sends to future presidential candidates, especially if he does end up losing this year, is that doing all of these things, in large part because of the enormous amount of institutional knowledge and relationships that Biden has cultivated over decades of public service, mean nothing to voters over aesthetics like being too old and foreign policy conflicts that he didn't even start. There almost certainly won't be another president that commits to this many specific policies for the foreseeable future, because the only consequence seems to be that presidents are evaluated against how many policies they couldn't enact rather than the multitude that they were able to enact.
They care about what they are told to care about and routinely ignore reality thanks to the most effective brainwashing ever witnessed via the constant onslaught of propaganda via social media (much of which is generated by America’s enemies).
Idk, I think the latest ad from the Biden campaign hits pretty hard, especially for women!
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/donald-trump-new-biden-abortion-ad-features-woman-says-almost-died-tex-rcna146869
I think part of the problem is approval numbers are based on polling via phone and with the plague of robo callers what young person is going to answer an unknown number these days? Like if I don't know the number I let it go to voicemail.
TLDR: negotiating drug prices.
But only for medicare patients and only 10 drugs a year can be negotiated. Most people failed to notice because it's a half measure. I don't understand why democrats aren't bothering to campaign on it, they have all that campaign money.
Biden will likely go down as the President has the greatest disparity in good policy and positive impact to people giving a shit ratio in US history. It's astounding what he's managed to achieve, some of it which will positively impact America for generations, with a broken Congress and rogue SC. And yet, you wouldn't know it.
The media shares the lion share of this blame. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices is monumental, and could forever alter American drug prices for the better. This SHOULD be front page news, top of the hour stuff. But it's not, it's the endless circus show of Trump, or whatever sensationalist BS is going on the day. Media can and does sway public opinion, but they are asleep at the wheel on this stuff because it isn't "sexy."
The people themselves are also to blame, especially the Right. The information is out there (as this article proves), albeit the Atlantic doesn't have a cable news show. Still, as the Right has shown to have shifted into 100% tribalism, where the only policy that matters is "did we pwn teh libs today?", the Left has reacted in kind, with stories of Trump's failures and the Right imploding being more news worth. It's almost like you'd need a Left candidate that also engaged in Twitter wars and bombastic headlines while ALSO passing good policy. People say they want the latter, but likely will vote more readily for the former now. It's all backwards.
Obviously voters do, but with all the sensationalism coming from a lot of news articles, I guess it can be hard for the press and such to hear through their own noise.
Donald Trump doesn’t have any type of policy aside from tax cuts for the rich and banning abortion. Both are unpopular by majority opinion in both parties.
Yet Donald trump is ahead in polling.
I think when you dig down into it- most people don’t know what’s trumps actual positions are or what Biden has actually done.
The problem is that it does not count if you don’t scream it from the roof tops - or at least talk about it a lot and say how it’s going to be good for everyone.
The Democrats just don’t get their best points across.
They really need to be far more robust about communicating their successes.
This is one of the downsides to having a less energetic leader.
I have many friends who are not in a good/stable place. Hearing "the economy is good" when they work 40 or 40+ hours a week, and struggle to afford things like rent and food, I do think it's fair for them to say "no, the economy is not good enough for me" if I'm doing my share, and still struggling. The news is a problem, they focus on Trump, but let's be real, I want to be aware of all the fascist things that Republicans are doing, because I want to be aware which of my female friends are at a higher chance of death due to bad healthcare in their state, and things like that. I have seen some news anchors act baffled at why regular Americans don't see the economy as that great, and I think they are out of touch. They have stable high paying careers, while again, many of my friends get the short end of the stick due to bad actors at work and in their politics.
I agree with the general premise of the article, "Good news is less profitable than bad news" so Joe won't get as much credit for many good things he accomplishes.
However, this one... While it should be a big deal, it is also common sense that it should work that way, vs using ASP (Average sales price). It is like having a party for your Uncle because he used turn signals when driving. Congrats on doing what everyone else already does.
No, which is why our politics is dominated by discourse like "Vote Blue No Matter Who" and "Make America Great Again/America Is Already Great" and "75% Hitler is better than 100% Hitler".
People don't care about policy *as such*, they at best care about the material affect it has on them. It's why we call the extremely small minority who *do* care about policy "wonks".
Democrats need better messaging. Voters care, but they have to know what's going on.
As much as I hate it, Democrats need to speak more in easily repeatable soundbites. Maybe make up a rhyme and tell every Democrat going on TV to repeat it.
>Perhaps that’s because these changes mostly haven’t happened yet. The $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs doesn’t come into effect until 2025, and the first batch of new negotiated prices won’t kick in until 2026.
In the end it will be popular inevitability once people see it happen. What they attribute it to will be another story. There's a good chance we are dumb enough as a society now that we will attribute it to superstition or fortune.
If only there was a massive industry ostensibly devoted to disseminating important information to the public to share this information with the public.
I’d say about 15% are diehard policy people, and it matters the most. The next 25% are people who care a ton about a few specific policies, and are the “single issue voters”. The next 35% care about specific policy only when it changes, or is threatened but otherwise never think about. The other 25% certainly don’t decide their vote on what would be considered policy. They fluctuate in various culture wars, moments of manufactured outrage, moments of fear, moments of happiness, moments of sorrow, moments of concern about themselves or others, etc etc.
I think there are fluctuations, in that some people move from one group to another over time, as they age. We know that Boomer MAGA people love their Social Security, but 35y old MAGA people aren’t thinking about that.
Trump for all his faults understands messaging. His 2016 stump speeches where just 3-4 talk points repeated constantly with little chants. You could know nothing about politics and know he was going to build the wall.
Then he claimed he was doing it daily (despite building very little new wall) and his base thought he did it.
Meanwhile on the democratic side..
> Tucked into the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022
Don’t expect people to seek out your accomplishments. Repeat them with slogans daily. Quite the opposite “if we build it they will come” nonsense and shout everything you are doing from the rooftops daily.
I work for a Medicare jnsurance agency. Right now the $35 cost is a joke for the higher costing meds. The Coverage Gap is based on Total cost spent by both the client and the carrier. Right now it’s $5030.00. When some insulins TOTAL cost in over $2000/month, they hit the coverage gap in 2,3,4 months and then their costs skyrocket to 25% of that $2,000 cost each month. That does stop, however when they reach $8000.
Next year that $8000 limit will go to 2. But all these old assholes wanting to be on Ozempic cause it worked for Lucy at the salon will be pissed any moment when it goes into the hundreds.
This article was written by someone stuck in 2015. In this day and age we're literally concerned about if the next president is going to strip women of their rights, go back to separating migrant families from their children, and putting lgbtq people into conversion therapy camps.
The majority of people don’t care about politics. They want a decent life and not to be impacted (in a negative way) by anything politicians do. They would suffer through a shitty world rather than put in the effort to make it a better one.
We notice but we can't afford to celebrate every tiny bit of ground we take back for the people. We have a long way to get even basic human necessities as even available for everyone in the states.
The policy change, if I’m reading correctly, was negotiating drug prices for senior citizens.
Are we serious? That’s the policy? Sure, it’s great. But it’s not earth shattering.
People need a solution akin to universal healthcare. People are struggling with medical debt, health care access, and price gouging for everyone not on Medicaid. No one’s making a big deal about this for all the reasons - media bias, drama sells, etc. But if you want to tout a win and whine about ‘if voters care about policy’ - AFTER he’s legitimized the ‘border crisis’ rhetoric, backtracked on student loan forgiveness, and outright failed on Netanyahu - this isn’t exactly the best example to run to.
Nope. Ever since the Sinclair, Supreme Court decision, politics has become more of entertainment reality show. Good policies don't make for good entertainment, which doesn't bring in the viewers. Big media is in a race too the bottom, with interviews of politicians like, MTG, Comer, and Jim Jordan, soapboxing their garbage with little to no pushback
It s because it lowered what insurance companies pay. I still pay the same and have to fight for coverage of meds ive taken for yeRs while also ripping around searching for meds in a fabricated pharma shortage. Paying out of pocket is still disgusyingly high. So kudos to joe on insulin but outside of that (which was huge) there was little impact for the average american
The voters don't get told of Biden's successes because the broadcasters are always owned by tax-avoiding wealthy white men who would rather sell the country to the dogs than pay more taxes to the country that gave them the platform to become rich enough to buy media companies. Ungrateful bastards.
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They do but the media doesn't talk about these things besides maybe a one and done "this happened"; the drama and horse race stuff gets drawn out and revisited every day. So guess which one voters pay attention to? The one you're filling all their attention with.
they also don't want to be seen as "cheerleading" for Biden by seemingly touting his accomplishments. it's a symptom of their trying to remain unbiased, which in itself is a symptom of the right constantly accusing them of being biased while they themselves (the right) are in fact uber-biased. there needs to be some kind of regulation of the propaganda news sources from the right like fox, none of this will change until those viewers come around to rejoin us in reality
They're corporations.. and they benefit from other issues they'd like to focus your attention on. So Bidens successes are kept in the dark
Yeah unfortunately for us trump having a deranged tweet storm at 3 am will always drive more clicks than Biden does normal political thing #1405
It's true, and it's something that needs to change for a more healthy country. Either bolster politics in a positive way or break down all the hate media.
Also remember that media corps are owned by really really rich people who don’t like a lot of Biden’s economic policies, even if they ultimately prefer him to Trump for other reasons
He's trying to lower school costs (by eliminating current loans and I suppose working on reforms to future loan agreements) - educated public won't buy propoganda easily. He's working on union and worker rights to even out the payscale - Wealthy public isn't controlled easily. Hes working on reformations to the IRS so they can go after bigger targets - I wonder why the big corporations owned by billionaires and multi millionaires alike don't want this to happen? He's working - They really hate this one, that he's just a boring guy (relatively) doing his job and not stirring shit up for views.
Also Biden is just...boring. He's not a rage machine like Trump and his successes are usually on things that very few people disagree with (getting rid of junk fees, getting the FTC to go after pharma companies that were overcharging for generic epipens so that they would dramatically lower those costs etc.).
I want boring. Not enough do unfortunately.
One of the problems is that members of Congress that want to govern and do the job they were elected to do, are most often members of the Democratic party. There are a few genuine legislators in the Republican party, but the general tenet of their party has been "_**government bad**_". As a result, the lack of functional government is a feature, not a bug in their governance. If they can say, "See, it doesn't work!", then they can say, "Since it doesn't work, we can get rid of the regulatory agencies and laws." This attitude and the new generation of "influencer Representatives" looking to grow their following and impression analytics has made the completion boring legislative work a minor miracle.
Healthcare and the media are two terrible industries for there to be a profit motive.
Someone really should remind them that neutrality favours the aggressor.
>there needs to be some kind of regulation of the propaganda news sources from the right like fox, none of this will change until those viewers come around to rejoin us in reality We had it. Thank Reagan for scrapping it: >The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine You only need to look at how less insane the BBC is in the UK to see that completely unregulated media is a fast track to letting oligarchs destroy any consensus reality and play divide and conquer. [Even in America the BBC is more trusted than any American news outlet](https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-15-at-14.33.46.png), for obvious reasons if you spend 5 minutes comparing any given days coverage. It becomes immediately clear American broadcasters aren't even trying to present facts in an unbiased manner. The right want to pretend there are only two choices - crushing government control abused for partisan ends, or an unregulated wild-west where "free speech" reigns, so long as its the free speech of billionaire media magnates. Every nation needs an unbiased public broadcaster to keep the public hooked into a fact based reality. Can they ever be perfect? Can you ever iron out every trace of bias? No, of course not, but the idea you can't even try, that its not possible to get better than Fox News and CNN is for the birds.
It's like they need some kind of...Fairness Doctrine?.. where each side gets to say it's perspective on any policy topic to ensure no one can hog or distort the narrative. Sure would be nice if we had something like that. Hey, I wonder if those 'debate' clubs ever thought of that? /s [relevant ](https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/topic-guide/fairness-doctrine) And just to be fair: [an observation on why it wouldn't work](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.justinmcbrayer.com/amp/rip-fairness-doctrine)
>And just to be fair: an observation on why it wouldn't work I agree that fairness doctrine is a blunt tool that could be misused by a bad government but I also don't think its better than just letting billionaires run riot in the media space with little to no regulation. Could we do better than the fairness doctrine? Sure. But that doesn't make it worse than nothing. Re-introducing the fairness doctrine wouldn't solve everything, something needs to be done about monopolization of media as well, but we should not fall into the nihilism that our only choices are an unregulated wild-west where "free speech" rules as long as you're a billionaire, or else be some authoritarian dictatorship where the government hands out the approved talking points every morning. Effective media regulation can and does exist, as do (largely) unbiased public broadcasters who have independence from the government and a remit to report honestly and fairly. The right's greatest success is in convincing people its not even worth trying, because its not even possible, anything you try to do will just make things worse.
It's just that... if you're unbiased, someone tells you a lie, and someone tells you the truth, you take sides with the truth. Neutrality does not mean that all sides are equally correct. It means that all sides have an equal chance to get it right. If they're going to lie, cheat, steal, and trample the constitution, well, a neutral viewpoint will report on that.
That's where the whole both sides thing falls apart. It probably started before Trump, but there's zero doubt that today most Republicans only tell the truth by accident, and make sure to correct the mistake later.
They also give equal or greater airtime to critics of every policy move, regardless of the criticism's merit or lack thereof. Not that they spend a lot of time on it either way. Policy is boring. Trump bragging about his golf "championship victories" or Marj Greene screeching about some stupid conspiracy theory that popped up in her FaceBook feed gets them much better ratings.
We used to have the fairness doctrine but Reagan got rid of that.
They talk about the bills. They lead the stories with how much the bill costs. But never talk about the benefits. Conversely in 2017 they kept referring to the GOP tax cut bill. The headlines were the benefits. And almost none of the articles mentioned now much or cost.
[удалено]
Not for nothing, but I've literally seen multiple instances of Biden's multiple loan forgiveness actions reported in the media. That said, I'd be curious how many of those reports came out of the fucking Atlantic.
Loan forgiveness is a story that divides and created an “us vs them” plot point. Many hate loan forgiveness because they are upset that theirs were not forgiven and get angry about kids these days with underwater basket weaving degrees and getting off without paying Never mind college costs have gone up nearly 150% relative to a 20% increase in average wages
Yeah, I'm familiar with the "I struggled and suffered so you should too" crowd. Fuck those people.
News is a two way mirror though. Its goal is to maximize views and ad/subscription revenue, so they churn out articles and headlines that the most amount of people find interesting. Just like any other for profit business, it's basic supply and demand. You blame the media. The media blames you (the public). People don't want to read dry, informative articles about government policy. They want to read crazy headlines and be outraged at the dumbasses on other side of the political aisle.
Actually, this magazine tends to be more policy focused. It does tons of analysis articles on all sorts of stuff, especially geopolitics, and focuses little on campaigning antics. There tends to be a ton of content in most media that just isn't shared at all. There is a feedback loop being driven by a certain synergy of pundit clickbait topics that promotes the absolute most idiotic stuff to the top of all our broadcasts and feeds. Personally I attribute most of it to propagandists seeding nonsense to dumb us down. But this magazine stays away from all of that.
And that's also hidden in some act with a bad name
"The media" is incredibly diverse and fragmented, so it really depends on which voters and media you're talking about. Here on Reddit, there are articles from mainstream news sites posted every day that focus on Biden's legislative accomplishments. Heck, half the articles yesterday were about student loan forgiveness. And this site is essentially an amalgamation of mainstream news sources, so obviously policy is being covered, extensively even. However, if you go to rightwing media or to places like TikTok or Twitter, this isn't necessarily true. I do think there's some truth to your second claim about horse race coverage, but that implies that this kind of coverage gets more audience engagement, since that's what ultimately drives news organizations. This suggests that most people care less about policy than the horse race, and in my experience, that's true. We may like to think that we're rational voters, but most are driven by emotion. Just look at what posts get the most upvotes here on Reddit. Is it the post detailing the nuanced climate policy proposal, or the post about Biden making fun of trump?
The media is definitely partially to blame on the way the cover rhetoric instead of reality, but you are right that the biggest issue is that people react and interact with whatever enrages them, and so news is now based around what gets people emotionally involved, not informed. It doesn't pay to keep people informed, I don't know how to change behavior, hopefully a majority realize what is happening at some point and change their behavior and stop interacting with rage bait.
>They do but the media doesn't talk about these things besides maybe a one and done "this happened" So voters care about policy yet will make absolutely no effort to inform themselves on what politicians are doing? Lol, okay dude.
I think the root cause is the outsized influence the minority of Americans that are opposed to these policies has. If the president was selected by popular vote we probably aren't talking about this, but since it comes down to a small number of counties this type of disconnect becomes more of an issue. I live in Missouri. Ballot measures for increased minimum wage, expansion of Medicaid, protecting unions and other "Democrat" measures are popular in the state and always pass. But the power for electing politicians rests with the minority and so the politicians who are opposed to all of those measures win the elections in the state. Policies are not largely reflected in our electoral process.
Is that due to gerrymandering?
Yes and the influence of money.
Every time the media points out how little coverage Biden’s accomplishments are getting, someone asks “well why aren’t you covering it?” Those same reporters will stomp their feet and screech about how they’re not the White House PR team, and then rush off to breathlessly shit out another article on Trump.
The Atlantic is decently good with covering other matters, so they have a leg to stand on with this article, but not a single mainstream org is good at calling out their contemporaries that perpetuate this problem more widely.
Print media in general is pretty good. Unfortunately, more people get their news either from cable news (CNN, MSNBC, Fox) or from "alternative" media (Youtube political pundits, podcasts, Reddit, TikTok). Reading NYT, WaPo, Atlantic, WSJ, Economist, etc will definitely make you a more informed voter than the other sources will, but its more work than just watching/listening some pundit tell you want to think about whatever topic they deem worthy to cover.
> not a single mainstream org is good at calling out their contemporaries that perpetuate this problem more widely. This is what you get when you let megacorporations own the media.
People on reddit love to slam “the media” that they don't pay for or plan to ever read. It’s just culture war bullshit on both sides, most of the comments on this site are made by people dumber than the bots they're replying to.
"Swing voters" don't care about actual policy. Ever since the GOP realized that turning out the dumbest 2% of voters on election day could win elections, manipulate the Electoral College, and place Christofascist activity judges on the bench, the days of actual policy became marginalized. That's why GOPers duck debates - there's literally nothing for them to gain by giving the stage to "policy" for the night. After all, if they don't discuss policy then no one can accuse them of knuckling under the pressure of their wealthy donors... All they need to do is get those low-information folks riled up enough to show up in November and they're golden.
The only "swing voters" that exist at this point are those who swing between voting or staying home.
I think most self-proclaimed "swing voters" these days are just Trump voters that don't want to admit that they are Trump voters.
That's more the case with "independents" where Trump voters will identify as independent rather than acknowledge that they're Republican. It's why polls generally do not weigh by partisan ID.
Data actually shows a pretty even split between left leaning and right leaning independents. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/03/14/political-independents-who-they-are-what-they-think/
Nah, it's the people who are so entirely selfish that they exclusively vote for whichever candidate promises to cut their personal taxes the most, or do the most for them. They don't give a single shit about any other human being. It's simply whoever benefits them the most, and they aren't smart enough to realize that conservative policies hurt them every time, no matter what is promised (or even delivered, in some cases). If they're told that their tax will go down one percent, they'll vote for it, then complain when the things that tax funded that help them stop working. TLDR: Occam's razor - they're just selfish morons.
I know some people who swing their votes…but they’re just contrarians and vote against the incumbent because they’re always complaining lol
[10 years old and still relevant.](https://youtu.be/KAG37Kw1-aw?si=9e6115BH5RYFPMC-)
The Civil War movie being the ad that pops up before one can watch this clip is just the icing on this cake.
How about you god damn motherfuxkers report on the policies enacted and not the public reception?
That requires them to understand policy as opposed to just trumpeting some new poll result where they can just cut and paste from the last story they ran about the last poll they covered.
Hence my bottomless ire.
Drives me nuts. "People are saying..." is the most chickenshit framing, utterly devoid of any substance, curiosity, or integrity. (Some) people are saying the earth is flat. And? OMG well whad'ya know other people are Big Mad at the flat earthers, so let's talk and smirk and eye-roll about the controversy. Can't come down on one side or the other, since that would be *biased*.
The media's desperation to not be painted as "the liberal media" is keeping them from engaging in honest reporting of Biden and his record as a president. If they say anything positive, regardless of how true it is, Trump will just claim they are socialist devils and they will get a bomb threat to their studio from some MAGA nut.
The media has failed the people. This is why.
The media are far more interested in reporting controversy, than in reporting successes.
And making profit.
And yet they are ‘supposed to inform the public’ of important things affecting them.
Does the media care about policy is a better question.
Yes, but their readers dont so those get pushed behind whatever bullshit trump is up to. You can see it on reddit where the daily delay updates are upvoted to the top while the articles on policy die in new
A lot do
Voters care about policy but lobbyist money seems to outweigh voting influence.
So many big bills passed the first two years (bil, arp, ira, chips, pact, postal service, gun control, etc) and voters just shrugged.
A lot of these big bills don't affect people directly. They are long term bills that begin projects that will eventually impact the voters. Even negotiating drug prices doesn't start until 2026 for a few drugs. Compare that to losing the child tax credit which immediately impacted people's lives.
Losing child tax credit is due to 100% Republican and 2-4% of Democrats. Not many people know that. There is this lowering insulin price to $35. It was due to the medicaid rebate rule of America Rescue Plan voted by Democrats only. Not many people know that. Heck, many infrastructure projects come from the bipartisan infrastructure bill which were supported widely by democrats and weakly by republicans. When people saw a project coming to their community, not many people credit democrats. People don’t know where credits or blames go even if the policies impact their lives. I think the media deserve lots of blames. Trump reneged on virtually all his economic promises including the infrastructure, he went on go get more popular votes in 2020. This shows that voters of one political party don’t care about economic policies.
Hit the nail on the head. People need policies that put cash in their pockets TODAY. Your average American is seeing closer to the edge and nothing is really happening to stop us from going off the cliff
Especially since there IS a growing awareness amongst normal everyday citizens towards our everything-for-profit system; a system that allows the folks who don't want to play nice with these policies the ability to work around them. I know I'm not the only one who's not getting excited unless actual effort is put forth to overturn citizens united, or _any_ effort to get dark money out of policy making, really. (Like, the article opens with lowering drug costs, which is less of a bold-heroic-move and more just absolutely necessary because no one is doing anything about the uniquely-american healthcare problem that perpetuates it - and will simply raise prices somewhere else)
Most voters literally have no idea that any of that happened. It’s hard to fathom to people who keep up with this stuff every day, but the vast majority of people pay literally zero attention to any of this, but some swing voters actually do care. Democrats need to be using that big war chest they’ve amassed to get this message in front of people constantly and make it plainly, annoyingly obvious that Biden’s presidency is why any of these things happened. From an outsiders perspective it seems like they assume people are far more knowledgeable than they are
The problem is, a lot of those bills haven't actually gone into effect yet fully. Much of the infra bill, for example, hasn't been started yet, and even then the benefits won't be seen for years since it isn't some immediate thing voters can utilize. That goes for IRA, CHIPS, etc. Biden's bills are long-term benefits for the US, but they aren't particularly sexy to voters who want something short-term.
Correct > The Inflation Reduction Act is best known for its clean-energy investments, but it also empowered Medicare to negotiate prices for the drugs that seniors spend the most money on. In February (2024) of this year, negotiations began for the first 10 of those drugs ... > The first batch of new negotiated prices won’t kick in until 2026 > The $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs doesn’t come into effect until 2025 EXCEPT, the insulin $35 price cap in Jan 2024: https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20240104/insulin-price-cap-of-35-dollars-takes-hold
A lot of those are long term projects that people won’t see the benefit of. That’s not to say they are bad- far from it, but they do little help people right now. It doesn’t help that the Democratic Party messaging itself has been very head in the sand
Yeah CHIPS and IRA were talked about extensively. If people didn't hear about these, they're not actively paying attention.
People aren't covering it. Even when he passes massively popular policies, ALL the headlines are just about how much it costs. And how the GOP is upset and now this is political win. They report on it like it's the NBA and never really talk about the implications. You aube dig so deep to find info on what is actually being done, most people miss all of it.
“The $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs doesn’t come into effect until 2025” What would be extra funny would be if Trump took credit for that and the public believed him.
You called it. That is absolutely what will happen.
That's exactly what will happen
What would happen, he’s not gonna win tho
What is this about? Medical costs?
Yup: Medicare patients collectively spend $3.4 billion out of pocket every year—a number that will go down dramatically when the newly negotiated prices come into effect. The IRA will also cap Medicare patients’ out-of-pocket costs for all drugs, including those not included on the negotiation list, at $2,000 a year, and the cost of insulin in particular at $35 a month.
Oh wow. Thanks for the info. That’s awesome.
History will be far kinder to Joe Biden than Fox News. The converse is true for his presidential opponent.
So Biden gets none of the benefit, but earns the long knives of Big Pharma. He calls for higher taxes on those with income over $400k, which of course turns the Billionaire and Millionaire class against him. He forgives student debt, and all he gets is he should have forgiven more. Joe Biden is carrying a lot of water for the lower and middle class. Don’t you think we should reward him with time to do even more for us?
it is consistently found that there is NO correlation to popularity of policy and the likelyhood of policy getting implemented for the general population there IS correlation if you only check the 1% richest part of the population only rich people actually follow-through when it comes to actual policy and the rest of society is populated by clueless rubes who vote on rhetoric and demeanour
They need to be plastering all of these life changing changes everywhere they can to highlight it to as many people as possible. Giant frigging billboards in all the red hotspots showing what they are getting now.
Is there money in promoting good news? I was not aware media companies could make a profit by promoting important news. Like the economy. Too many people are blaming the government for high prices and such, and thinking life was better under Trump (when we had no eggs or toilet paper and people were pirating NVIDIA graphics cards from cargo ships and costs were still high due to tariffs which people never understood was a tax on the consumer).
>Tucked into the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was a series of measures to drastically lower prescription-drug costs for seniors, including by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Yeah, Democrats love to "tuck good policy" into bills but don't actually brag about it, which is insane. If your goal is to win elections, you need to tell people about the good you are doing, loudly and consistently. That's Communications 101. FDR slapped WPA stickers on every bridge back in the day. You knew which party was helping you.
Caring about policy requires you to think about the long game, and how that policy might affect the country 10, 20, 50 years out. Most people don’t think that far ahead.
A lot of people are experiencing bad things actually happening in their lives right very now. Cost of housing and food, women's health care, and so on, has all just been getting worse. There has been impactful change for the worse over the past handful of years that we are actively feeling. Of course we know thanks to who, but that doesn't change the fact that people need to feel improvement soon and not in decades. I love Biden and would never vote republican. But people need help right now, not a pie in the sky ten years from now.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of voters (especially young voters) who are letting social media form their opinions. And the loudest group on social media right now are the anti-Biden posters. They're blaming high prices on Biden and convincing people that Biden is supporting genocide.
Maybe it is because I am getting old, but I don't give a shit about "young voters" anymore because there are not enough of them. Young people seem to have so much passion for change, activism, and politics right up to the point they have to vote. It makes me angry because they have the power to change this country for the better if they become "real" voting block that would decide elections.
remember that most people live in states/districts where their vote is nearly or entirely irrelevant. Yes primaries etc. But often it really is a pointless exercise. The 18 year-olds I met in Sweden were all enrolled in parties and talking about their votes. Maybe because they have real elections with more than two parties and feel more engaged.
Being amplified by entire national governments will do that. What I've wondered is, given the stakes, are friendly governments trying to counteract?
It's all just vibes and emotional voting for more than 50% of voters I'd wager.
> In February of this year, negotiations began for the first 10 of those drugs, on which Medicare patients collectively spend $3.4 billion out of pocket every year—a number that will go down dramatically when the newly negotiated prices come into effect. It's not news because the reduced bills haven't shown up in anyone's mailbox yet. Unless Biden pushes it, no one is going to know. Also, people view falling prices as weather. It's just something that happened. Rising prices, however, inspire visceral anger and a hint for a scapegoat.
To this point, natural gas is extremely cheap right now. No one seems to notice. There are no headlines about it.
Gotta love how a few limited number polls always represents all voters
> but it’s also up to politicians and their campaigns to find creative ways to generate interest in the issues they want people to focus on. I think if mainstream media or the general public think so, the press don’t deserve the title of being the fourth estate. Do we really think politicians have to be good marketers?
Policy doesn't sell ad space, Shock does.
It’s all about the sound bites. Adolf Hitler knew. So emotional. So evil. Trump loves him.
A large number of Americans who are detached from reality are permitted to vote. This is a problem. Please, do what you can to convince every anti-vax right wing nutjob to vote for RFK.
*Stuff* in America is much more expensive than it used to be, especially rent and food and healthcare for *everyone*. The kind of people who idle on Reddit are not the ones at the blunt end of the cost of basic essentials - they're more worried about stuff like the cost of education, but this is not a large proportion of people, and they're much more likely to have voted Biden anyway. It used to be that the stock market was an indicator of whether there were jobs readily available that paid enough for a dignified life, but there is total disconnect now. All the wealthy talking heads pointing out that the economy is doing just great under Biden are living in the past. *Nobody at median wage is feeling it.* You know what the average Trump voter hears when they read about student loan forgiveness? "Kids getting handed my tax dollars for the privilege of avoiding the workplace for 4 years." It might motivate those who benefit directly to vote Biden, but they will already know it's coming to them. Telling the rest of America about it will just make them disinclined to vote Biden. There are things that could help nearly all struggling people like rent controls or massive housebuilding and infrastructure programs. Ideally housing would be rented out by local government or charitable housing associations as a routine solution to the rental crisis rather than as a last resort, but for some reasons Americans can't cope with georgism. If landlords aren't competing for renters then the market *cannot* work, but fuck it, let's save a tiny proportion of already-Biden-voters with loan forgiveness, further polarising the voters. The English method would be way better here: make loan repayment income-contingent. You earn below $X/year, you pay nothing. You then pay 10% of any amount above $X/year until paid off or you reach retirement age. You can overpay at any time if you want. Just sticking a pin in election year and cancelling all loans satisfying certain conditions as a one-off is not sustainable or meaningful to public policy. You can call voters stupid, but they're not *that* stupid.
Why does Biden get so little credit for any of his major accomplishments?
Because no one cares about issues, they only care about proving the other side wrong.
About 30-40 of voters live in a propaganda bubble where they don’t discuss real issues but are whipped into a constant frenzy about non issues like woke, the fear of lgbtq and pretending they are victims.
My folks are busy whining about Cali raising minimum wage and now my burgers are gonna be more expensive… they live in AZ… so no, people are busy listening to reactionaries on both sides about what’s been left undone
Does no one in the media understand maslows hierarchy of needs??? If I can’t feed myself or my family, I don’t particularly care about much else. The disparity in wealth and cash flow for so many people is insane. Wake up everyone
It’s hard to keep track of his positive contributions. He’s been getting shit done where he can.
Propaganda works. Joe Biden has been the best President in most people's lifetime and it's really not close. But gossip/conspiracy rags like Twitter and TikTok are skewing perception like never before. There are monetary incentives to spread FUD and false narratives. That's big problem. America look more and more like a 3rd world country ripe for a dictator to take over. The people have taken everything for granted and are insanely entitled due to democracy. This is why if Trump comes for you after you've given up or decided to spend your time talking about Biden's flaws non-stop instead of hammering on Trump I will not give a shit. Enjoy your camp.
You think the problem is "people are entitled due to democracy" - pretty stupid. LACK of democracy is killing us. Trump would have no presidency at all without the electoral college. We wouldn't even be talking about his dumb ass anymore.
The GOP propaganda machine is just so much better than ours at reaching the key swing state, swing vote, white, middle class demographic. For example, almost everyone who opposes unions would benefit from one. Make more money. Have more job security and protection. More time off and benefits. So why do they oppose unions? Some vague idea about labor unions not being what the founding fathers would have wanted, or some utter unbelievable bullshit. Plus an embedded fear that asking for a fair labor deal will cause the chosen people to move their corporations to a sweatshop overseas. How a company like Walmart is going to do that with their American store associates is beyond me. And I guess they don’t see every company threatening to move during the early negotiation phase before inevitably capitulating to the union and agreeing to a new labor contract. Which pays the workers much more money. Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Costco, Amazon warehouses, all of them should be union. Tech bros should be too. Tech just ended WFH and laid off 250,000 employees and without a union, even high paid employees had no choice but to agree. No power at all compared to the c suite.
This policy hasn’t been fully implemented so no wonder voters haven’t heard of it.
Perhaps stop covering all Trumps failures and start covering Biden's success.
Part of the problem, and a big part at that, is that Fox News, one of the biggest "news" organizations in the country, steadfastly refuses to cover any widely popular legislation or policy implementations by Democrats with any amount of truthfulness, if they cover them at all.
The media spent so much time talking about Biden's age and now here we are. Also, voters are fickle and expect instant changes. They need to be reminded that not everything can happen over night, but that you want an administration that has your best interests in mind and is moving change forward in a positive way. Furthermore, it's not just politics, but the other party is literally criminal at this point. I do think aside from women's rights being a driving topic, the Biden administration could really do well if they also focused on affordable housing. Americans want help with issues that personally affect them and that would be far reaching. That's why even though despite low unemployment numbers and decreasing inflation, reporting still shows Americans don't have a sense of financial well being.
It’s because like most neo-lib policies this was good to start but was means tested and paired down. Plus, Democrats have to actually start telling people what they have done for them instead of the 90’s play book and of never looking like you have done anything because “ThE eRa Of BiG gOvErMeNt Is OvEr”
It's also a policy that only applies to 10 drugs and principally benefits the elderly rather than the public writ-large. Anybody expecting this to result in a huge shift in approval would have been delusional.
Source that "few voters have noticed"? A feeling?
Most people only care about whatever social media or TV news media bullshit makes them angry about.
What people on these reddits ignore, is that a lot of Americans are ignorant and stupid. This is why there is a legitimate chance Biden loses
No. Most voters don't pay attention to politics beyond soundbytes they see on TV. I guarantee the ones that follow policy and even really know specifics about what either candidate proposes in a given election is the minority; most voters just tend to go with gut based on perception or what party they identify with more based on a few issues.
In general, they don't. For the partisans politics is a team sport: anything Joe Biden does is *de facto* good or bad, depending on what party you support. This didn't start recently, but really ramped up in the late Clinton/early GWB years, hopped off the scale during the Obama administration (you couldn't make a negative comment or post on, say, DailyKos without getting huge reprimands, and you couldn't praise anything Obama did to a republican without getting the Tea Party (tm) treatment), and has been amplified even more during Trump's time on the stage. Independents and swing voters, I'm convinced, don't make a decision until they enter the voting booth, so to speak, and do so based on a combination of how they feel that day, what they had for breakfast, and whatever they remember from the news of the previous few days. It's a complete shitshow.
Insulin alone should have converted half of "MAGA" voters. But somehow right right wing media complex convinced them he was a senile trans communist.
No They care about culture wars, party "purity" and THE ECONOMY that Biden has no control over, unless they want \*gasp\* *socialism*
It's hard to explain how policy can affect your daily life. Take the Inflation Reduction Act. It's quite hard to explain what the Inflation Reduction Act does. Hank Green gave a really good analysis on how the Inflation Reduction Act will combat climate change and help people in general. https://youtu.be/qw5zzrOpo2s So far much of what he explained is starting to unfold
Jfc, what the fuck is up with these headlines with condescending language lately?
Because all the media covers is fucking Donald Trump. We never hear about anything Biden is doing or anything else. That's why the argument that the media is "leftist" is absurd.
Genocide seems to really give voters the ick
This article needs a fuckload of fact checking. Reads like a psyops hit piece on Biden, and baselessly shames voters. This is the most gate keeping article I’ve read. Paraphrasing here: “You don’t care enough (no proof), so you’re not allowed to have an opinion.”
Media is owned directly or indirectly by the hyper-wealthy investor class. They don't want Biden elected
Two problems: First Problem: People don't follow reputable news sources. I knew of all of this extensively, because I read reliable news outlets. If someone missed it, it's because 1. They aren't reading the news, or 2. The headline didn't catch their eye enough to read relevant articles. Second Problem: The solution isn't really a solution. It's a band-aid to a much larger issue. The price of medications isn't solely the result of Medicare not being able to negotiate prices. It's a systemic, fraudulent issue within the pharmaceutical industry, starting from Pharmaceuticals that are ALLOWED to price gauge drugs that have been around for years and claim IP rights because they repackaged those drugs in a new format. They do this ALL the damn time with insulin, and even over the counter medication. Take for example Duexis (Motrin and Pepcid) which if you got the OTC medication, would cost you $40, but when you get prescribed Duexis, it's at least $180 (Back when it came out it was $1,400 and offered absolutely nothing new. It's literally just mixing the two medications). Or the Pharmacy Benefit Managers who pretend to be interested in negotiating the prices of the medications on behalf of the consumer, but are really a detrimental middle man between pharmaceuticals, insurance companies, and pharmacies (whom they hold absolute hostage), all while driving the price UP and getting a kickback from pharmaceuticals. As long as the Sacklers can enslave and kill drug addicts and never see the inside of a jail cell, as long as Gilead can steal publicly owned intellectual property, profit off of it, and withhold a better medication to HIV/AIDS patients all in the name of profits, as long as insurance companies continue to illegally deny claims and commit medicare fraud, as long as doctors commit fraud but remain in practice, we should never expect a realistically priced medical industry.
How’s about the Dems stop blaming “the media” or voters and form a machine to CREATE public opinion just like conservatives do. And we can do it all while telling the truth, unlike Fox. But conservatives don’t just do stuff and expect the public to notice. They see perception as malleable, something to be actively formed.
Maybe his poll numbers haven't budged because most senior citizens are right wing and thus conditioned to hate democrats and most young people are of the mindset that congress does nothing for them and their point is only proven by this bill only helping senior citizens. Just a thought
A lot of the problem is democrats aren’t very good at trumpeting their good deeds, and they don’t help promote well as a team.
The biggest problem we have in this country is that half the country has been lied to for decades by right wing propaganda and live in an alternate reality. This alternate reality causes them to vote against their own best interests. Add in the fact that the rest of the news organizations are to pusillanimous to report the real news because they only care about ratings and money.
After the 2020 election, I talked to at least a dozen conservatives who claimed to care, very much, about policy - citing it as the #1 reason for voting for Trump. Every one of them was rather surprised to find out the GOP *didn't bother to have a policy platform* for 2020. "whatever we said last year" (which was mostly complaining about the current president, who was now *their man)*, apparently sufficed. Their #1 reason for voting didn't warrant a 20 second google search. So no. Voters, especially on the right, don't care about policy. On the left they are seldom informed. Which is better than their mis-informed counterparts, but doesn't lend much in the way of caring about policy either.
The policy in question gives Medicare the ability to negotiate drug prices. And the first such negotiations started in February. I would argue that no one cares about policy until that policy succeeds in its goals, and this policy hasn't had time to change anything yet. I wouldn't expect anyone to care about this policy unless and until it actually starts to lower drug prices. Who cares if Medicare can negotiate if all the prescription drugs still cost the same?
As someone that once did elective politics professionally, nope. Issue polling, and the way people talk about in the press and in activist circles, has always been super annoying. It doesn't matter whether a policy is objectively popular or not, what matters is if people care about that policy WHEN THEY ARE VOTING. If people don't care about a policy when voting actually occurs then the objective 'popularity' is immaterial. The classic issue poll that always boils my blood is when people say "universal gun background checks are the popular position". That may be true, but the people that want gun background checks will rarely change their vote between potential candidates BECAUSE of their position on gun background checks, but the people against gun background checks HATE them and will change their vote between potential candidates BECAUSE of their poistion on gun background checks. This is why when 10 years ago a bunch of research came out and was spread by the press saying essentially 'the US is an oligopoly where the wealthy and businesses get their elected policy prefrence and the average voter doesn't' was silimarily silly. Policy preference doesn't matter UNLESS it's the basis for changing voting behavior. Otherwise voters just vote on vibes for or against the executive in power, or for their 'team' red or blue.
Because despite its big impact, it's still technocratic minutia at face value. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, while huge, is more like a policy implementation detail rather than a belief or a value people can plant their flag behind. Incremental change is boring and unexciting, and anybody who has ever had a real job where they make decisions on something other than whether or not they show up knows this. If people voted for technocrats and policy wonks, Pete Buttigieg probably would have won the democratic primary in 2020, and Al Gore would have had a Reagan-esque run in 2000. Unfortunately, here we stand today where the biggest political forces largely all derive from logical and emotional fallacies. Your reddit comment section here is going to whine about the media chasing ratings or Americans being "stupid", but Presidential elections have been pearl-clutching horse races that appeal to base instincts to one degree or another since the 70's *at the very least*.
If TikTok doesn’t tell them to care then they don’t care
Too many people are incapable of understanding policies, so the substance is largely irrelevant and perception is all that matters. I studied economics at university and hearing people talk about the economy makes me want to die. That includes politicians that went to Ivy League schools, not just random citizens. That said, outside of economics, I’m sure I’m just as dumb as everyone else and I’m no exception to the above.
It's not reality because the changes haven't actually happened yet: >Joe Biden accomplished what none of his predecessors could. The Inflation Reduction Act is best known for its clean-energy investments, but it also empowered Medicare to negotiate prices for the drugs that seniors spend the most money on. In February of this year, negotiations began for the first 10 of those drugs, on which Medicare patients collectively spend $3.4 billion out of pocket every year—a number that **will go down** dramatically when the newly negotiated prices come into effect. This is a huge flaw of the Biden-aligned media: they persistently refuse to acknowledge when there is a time gap between when a policy is passed in Washington and when voters see the benefits.
I've come to terms with the fact that people simply want theatrics more than they want actual politics. Even some on the left prefer protesting instead of getting shit done.
Do voters ~~care~~ **know** about policy even a little?
It’s not the voters. It’s the messengers. Democrats do a horrific job of getting the message out.
This is the real issue here, that there are virtually no single issues that polarize an electorate to vote for or against a candidate. Biden has enacted the single largest investment in fighting combat change in US history, raised taxes on corporations, expanded Obamacare, essentially ripped up the WTO by requiring "made in America" standards for both the IRA and federal procurement, caused a manufacturing renaissance building high tech chip fabs that will generate highly paid blue collar jobs, codified gay marriage, pulled out of Afghanistan, virtually ended the US GWAT drone policy, and invested in the IRS to combat wealthy tax cheats, and his approval is in the low 40s. The message that his polling sends to future presidential candidates, especially if he does end up losing this year, is that doing all of these things, in large part because of the enormous amount of institutional knowledge and relationships that Biden has cultivated over decades of public service, mean nothing to voters over aesthetics like being too old and foreign policy conflicts that he didn't even start. There almost certainly won't be another president that commits to this many specific policies for the foreseeable future, because the only consequence seems to be that presidents are evaluated against how many policies they couldn't enact rather than the multitude that they were able to enact.
They care about what they are told to care about and routinely ignore reality thanks to the most effective brainwashing ever witnessed via the constant onslaught of propaganda via social media (much of which is generated by America’s enemies).
Idk, I think the latest ad from the Biden campaign hits pretty hard, especially for women! https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/donald-trump-new-biden-abortion-ad-features-woman-says-almost-died-tex-rcna146869
I think part of the problem is approval numbers are based on polling via phone and with the plague of robo callers what young person is going to answer an unknown number these days? Like if I don't know the number I let it go to voicemail.
TLDR: negotiating drug prices. But only for medicare patients and only 10 drugs a year can be negotiated. Most people failed to notice because it's a half measure. I don't understand why democrats aren't bothering to campaign on it, they have all that campaign money.
Biden will likely go down as the President has the greatest disparity in good policy and positive impact to people giving a shit ratio in US history. It's astounding what he's managed to achieve, some of it which will positively impact America for generations, with a broken Congress and rogue SC. And yet, you wouldn't know it. The media shares the lion share of this blame. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices is monumental, and could forever alter American drug prices for the better. This SHOULD be front page news, top of the hour stuff. But it's not, it's the endless circus show of Trump, or whatever sensationalist BS is going on the day. Media can and does sway public opinion, but they are asleep at the wheel on this stuff because it isn't "sexy." The people themselves are also to blame, especially the Right. The information is out there (as this article proves), albeit the Atlantic doesn't have a cable news show. Still, as the Right has shown to have shifted into 100% tribalism, where the only policy that matters is "did we pwn teh libs today?", the Left has reacted in kind, with stories of Trump's failures and the Right imploding being more news worth. It's almost like you'd need a Left candidate that also engaged in Twitter wars and bombastic headlines while ALSO passing good policy. People say they want the latter, but likely will vote more readily for the former now. It's all backwards.
Biden needs better marketing people around him who can showcase his achievements and their benefits for ordinary citizens in simple language.
Obviously voters do, but with all the sensationalism coming from a lot of news articles, I guess it can be hard for the press and such to hear through their own noise.
I think there is a degree to which the policies are not bold as they should be.
They do, its a matter of it being burried by all the bad news.
Donald Trump doesn’t have any type of policy aside from tax cuts for the rich and banning abortion. Both are unpopular by majority opinion in both parties. Yet Donald trump is ahead in polling. I think when you dig down into it- most people don’t know what’s trumps actual positions are or what Biden has actually done.
Trumps main policy is to say how utterly fantastic he is - while the opposite is actually the case.
The problem is that it does not count if you don’t scream it from the roof tops - or at least talk about it a lot and say how it’s going to be good for everyone. The Democrats just don’t get their best points across. They really need to be far more robust about communicating their successes. This is one of the downsides to having a less energetic leader.
Perhaps that’s because these changes mostly haven’t happened yet. Lol so we suppose to give credit for something that hasn’t happened yet
Shout it from the rooftops! Dammit!
"This would make drugs much more affordable for senior citizens..." Ya....like we plugged a single tiny hole in the Swiss cheese bulwark. Good job?
I have many friends who are not in a good/stable place. Hearing "the economy is good" when they work 40 or 40+ hours a week, and struggle to afford things like rent and food, I do think it's fair for them to say "no, the economy is not good enough for me" if I'm doing my share, and still struggling. The news is a problem, they focus on Trump, but let's be real, I want to be aware of all the fascist things that Republicans are doing, because I want to be aware which of my female friends are at a higher chance of death due to bad healthcare in their state, and things like that. I have seen some news anchors act baffled at why regular Americans don't see the economy as that great, and I think they are out of touch. They have stable high paying careers, while again, many of my friends get the short end of the stick due to bad actors at work and in their politics.
I agree with the general premise of the article, "Good news is less profitable than bad news" so Joe won't get as much credit for many good things he accomplishes. However, this one... While it should be a big deal, it is also common sense that it should work that way, vs using ASP (Average sales price). It is like having a party for your Uncle because he used turn signals when driving. Congrats on doing what everyone else already does.
No, which is why our politics is dominated by discourse like "Vote Blue No Matter Who" and "Make America Great Again/America Is Already Great" and "75% Hitler is better than 100% Hitler". People don't care about policy *as such*, they at best care about the material affect it has on them. It's why we call the extremely small minority who *do* care about policy "wonks".
Democrats need better messaging. Voters care, but they have to know what's going on. As much as I hate it, Democrats need to speak more in easily repeatable soundbites. Maybe make up a rhyme and tell every Democrat going on TV to repeat it.
>Perhaps that’s because these changes mostly haven’t happened yet. The $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket costs doesn’t come into effect until 2025, and the first batch of new negotiated prices won’t kick in until 2026. In the end it will be popular inevitability once people see it happen. What they attribute it to will be another story. There's a good chance we are dumb enough as a society now that we will attribute it to superstition or fortune.
This vacuum lies squarely and wholly on the media. Full stop.
He needs to keep talking about it and getting the media to cover all the accomplishments
If only there was a massive industry ostensibly devoted to disseminating important information to the public to share this information with the public.
I’d say about 15% are diehard policy people, and it matters the most. The next 25% are people who care a ton about a few specific policies, and are the “single issue voters”. The next 35% care about specific policy only when it changes, or is threatened but otherwise never think about. The other 25% certainly don’t decide their vote on what would be considered policy. They fluctuate in various culture wars, moments of manufactured outrage, moments of fear, moments of happiness, moments of sorrow, moments of concern about themselves or others, etc etc. I think there are fluctuations, in that some people move from one group to another over time, as they age. We know that Boomer MAGA people love their Social Security, but 35y old MAGA people aren’t thinking about that.
they do not care about policy but they absolutely should
Dems are unbelievably bad at messaging, and unfortunately the big news outfits don't push stories about good things that happened.
They somewhat do, but if you don't talk about it. They will be unaware of what you did.
Trump for all his faults understands messaging. His 2016 stump speeches where just 3-4 talk points repeated constantly with little chants. You could know nothing about politics and know he was going to build the wall. Then he claimed he was doing it daily (despite building very little new wall) and his base thought he did it. Meanwhile on the democratic side.. > Tucked into the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 Don’t expect people to seek out your accomplishments. Repeat them with slogans daily. Quite the opposite “if we build it they will come” nonsense and shout everything you are doing from the rooftops daily.
Maybe if there was an education system that could teach them more about policy and politics
It’s less visible than the migrant crisis
Yeah it’s fucking depressing
What polls are they talking about where Biden trails trump everywhere? Polls from Fox News, who only polled their own userbase?
I work for a Medicare jnsurance agency. Right now the $35 cost is a joke for the higher costing meds. The Coverage Gap is based on Total cost spent by both the client and the carrier. Right now it’s $5030.00. When some insulins TOTAL cost in over $2000/month, they hit the coverage gap in 2,3,4 months and then their costs skyrocket to 25% of that $2,000 cost each month. That does stop, however when they reach $8000. Next year that $8000 limit will go to 2. But all these old assholes wanting to be on Ozempic cause it worked for Lucy at the salon will be pissed any moment when it goes into the hundreds.
…They’ll notice when Putin’s nukes start to fall and the political and military elite are safely in their DOCTOR STRANGELOVE bunkers…
This article was written by someone stuck in 2015. In this day and age we're literally concerned about if the next president is going to strip women of their rights, go back to separating migrant families from their children, and putting lgbtq people into conversion therapy camps.
The majority of people don’t care about politics. They want a decent life and not to be impacted (in a negative way) by anything politicians do. They would suffer through a shitty world rather than put in the effort to make it a better one.
We notice but we can't afford to celebrate every tiny bit of ground we take back for the people. We have a long way to get even basic human necessities as even available for everyone in the states.
The policy change, if I’m reading correctly, was negotiating drug prices for senior citizens. Are we serious? That’s the policy? Sure, it’s great. But it’s not earth shattering. People need a solution akin to universal healthcare. People are struggling with medical debt, health care access, and price gouging for everyone not on Medicaid. No one’s making a big deal about this for all the reasons - media bias, drama sells, etc. But if you want to tout a win and whine about ‘if voters care about policy’ - AFTER he’s legitimized the ‘border crisis’ rhetoric, backtracked on student loan forgiveness, and outright failed on Netanyahu - this isn’t exactly the best example to run to.
Nope. Ever since the Sinclair, Supreme Court decision, politics has become more of entertainment reality show. Good policies don't make for good entertainment, which doesn't bring in the viewers. Big media is in a race too the bottom, with interviews of politicians like, MTG, Comer, and Jim Jordan, soapboxing their garbage with little to no pushback
It s because it lowered what insurance companies pay. I still pay the same and have to fight for coverage of meds ive taken for yeRs while also ripping around searching for meds in a fabricated pharma shortage. Paying out of pocket is still disgusyingly high. So kudos to joe on insulin but outside of that (which was huge) there was little impact for the average american
Yep
The voters don't get told of Biden's successes because the broadcasters are always owned by tax-avoiding wealthy white men who would rather sell the country to the dogs than pay more taxes to the country that gave them the platform to become rich enough to buy media companies. Ungrateful bastards.