I'm tired of hearing about how this or that politician, agency, etc., "failed at their messaging"

[Silent3]

It's a stupid, ignorant public failing at their listening and their thinking.

I wish our leaders and representatives could focus on creating and enacting the best policies, just do the damned work to get it done, rather than wasting so much time figuring out how to reduce it all to bumper-sticker simplicity for a bunch of morons won't vote for good stuff because the importance of this shit wasn't spoon-fed to their pea-sized brains.

I'm especially pissed off at the media for spending so much time judging politicians on their messaging rather than simply explaining shit better so the messaging competition doesn't matter as much.

How about the next time a big hurricane hits, we get lengthy discussions about climate change and climate policy, instead of hours on end of watching on-the-scene reporters standing in the fucking rain?

How about the next time a mass shooting occurs, we get lengthy discussions of gun policy, crime statistics, comparative analysis of gun policies from different states and different countries around the world, instead of running the same god damned cell phone videos from the scene over and over again in an endless loop while vamping for time waiting for a the local sheriff to appear at a podium to give the same fucking redundant speech we've heard a hundred times before?

How about instead of jabbering about whether the "defund the polices" slogan hurt Democrats or not, and putting a bit more effort into educating people to think more about how we run our police departments, what policies would work best, where our money would best be spent, and trying to fix the problem caused by shallow, knee-jerk reactions to slogans instead of helping to elevate the best sloganeers to power?

[aocommunalpunch]

1. LMAO

Couldn’t agree more. However, that doesn’t allow people to judge other people. They’d have to judge policies and America can’t be havin any o that nonsense.

[Silent3]

3. I doing a lot of judging other people right now too

I'm tired of the fate of the world being dependent on so many shallow and stupid and ignorant and self-interested people. I'm being pretty damned judgmental and elitist, in fact, and it's hard to give a damn anymore about that.

[RKP5637]

2. Agree!!! Well Said!!! n/t

[cilla4progress]

4. I agree.

Yet they (political leaders) ignore it at their peril. This is what we've become.

[Caliman73]

5. There is a long history in the United States of anti-intellectualism.

Since our days as a English colony, there were people who railed against "the elites". In some cases, with valid reason. Aristocracy held itself over the rest of society by mere station of birth. It is understandable to rail against an inherently wrong system like that. The problem is that once aristocracy was eliminated, the sentiment didn't change. Once education and information were more or less, made universal, the sentiment remained that "those educated elites" still set themselves apart and looked down on the "common man".

Conservatives have used anti-intellectualism to rile up the poor and middle class White people in this country ever since. You see Harvard educated people like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, trying to speak like populists and the media calling Democratic politicians "too cerebral". Like, "Oh that woman is too smart" WTF? Too SMART? Why would that be a problem?

My wife will often say to me, "I totally understand what you are saying, but most Americans won't" That really saddens and frustrates me. I have to dumb down my information rather than expect people to understand things that I don't think are that complex. President Obama was "too cerebral".

Remember when he said, that, "many Americans, especially in rural areas, feel like they haven't been served well by society, so they cling to guns and religion"? People took that to mean that he was criticizing rural people when he was actually criticizing the society and politicians that have seemingly abandoned those people and sent the looking for ways of maintaining a sense of power and control over their lives. To me, that was not difficult to understand. When you feel like the people in charge are not listening to you, you take steps to become self reliant. That is why in neighborhoods where police respond "late" if at all and/or present a threat to the inhabitants when they do show up, you see gun ownership levels rise. A gun gives some people a sense of power and control, a way to "protect yourself".

Gutting the education system, and tying it to property taxes, has been a way to both shut people out of advancement in society, and keeping swaths of the population ignorant enough to accept what the real elites, the ones with the money and power to affect policy, are saying.