Interesting to me is reinforcement of the enthusiasm gap between Dems and Rs.
“While majorities of both Republicans and Democrats express news fatigue, Republicans are feeling it more. Roughly three-quarters (77%) of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents feel worn out over how much news there is, compared with about six-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (61%). This elevated fatigue among Republicans tracks with them having less enthusiasm than Democrats for the 2018 elections.”
I’ve been arguing for a long time that human brains are basically ape brains, right? And I have this idea that the world just moves too fast these days for the ape brain to deal with. Too much information, to quote The Police. We can’t handle it. It leads to anxiety, confusion, and willful blindness, belief in conspiracies, all sorts of things.
Some brains handle it better than others, as you would expect, but bottom line is that our hardware just isn’t capable of dealing with the speed of life that we’ve now reached.
“Human brains are basically ape brains” in the same sense that human arms are basically ape arms. It doesn’t mean they are used to swing from trees.
Likewise, human brains work very differently from ape brains. They are specialized for fine motor control, language, and visual pattern recognition. The latter two mean that humans are very good at information processing.
Very good relative to other animals. There might be a hypothetical intelligence which can process information much better than we can, only it doesn’t exist yet.
I agree that we are very good at information processing (and very bad about seeking patterns where there aren’t any). We did a great job of information-gathering ourselves out of the Middle Ages. I’m just not sure we can handle the ridiculous flow of information now available to us. It seems to make a whole lot of people crazy. That, plus overcrowding, seem to be pushing us toward our own extinction.
I can attest that I have a hard time keeping up with the things that are relevant and important to my life. And I believe that the barrage of news is designed to dispirit people and drive them from paying attention to what is important so that others can pick our pockets.
To deal with this, I try to be more selective in how I take in my news, and when I take in news, so that I have the energy and creativity to participate in small ways to shore up democratic institutions and try to advance the cause of democracy in the work that I do.
Seriously though Walker is a monster, and you’d be well rid of him. I’m hopeful that Dayton (who I don’t love, but at least has kept a (sigh) Republican legislature from utterly fucking the state over) leaving isn’t going to leave us with another (shudder) Pawlenty.
I was a little concerned at how Tina Smith might be polling in Minnesota, mostly because the only thing I know about her opponent, Karin Housley, is that she’s former NHL great Phil Housley’s wife.
Was happy to see that Marist/NBC has her trailing by double digits, which looks a comfortable lead for now, even with the potential flaws in that poll set.
Nice summary of what’s going on in the Georgia gubernatorial race. Of course, all you really need is this bit:
Which I suspect is going to be true in the vast majority of elections this year. I’d like to think that convincing people to support your positions on the issues matters, but in reality, there are so many who will only consider the R or D after the name that it’s mostly about getting your team to the polls.
That’s really weird, considering how little news there is on Fox.
I suppose I should explain my joke, making it automatically a poor one: I refer to the fact that most of the time their hosts are from the Opinion or Entertainment side, rather than the news side. They want their viewers to take it all in as if it were News, of course.
There’s separate research that the ability to tell the difference between fact vs opinion is linked to a number of factors that the average Fox news viewer ranks low on
Just a note of caution on the NBC/Marist poll as it relates to Wisconsin and Walker: This is an RV poll and Walker has always trailed significantly in the summer RV polls. This was true in all three elections that he has won. It would be surprising if he didn’t, since Democrats significantly outnumber Republicans in the state. Statewide elections in Wisconsin are all about voter commitment and Walker has gotten that from the Republicans up until now. This does not mean he isn’t facing some significant headwinds this time: There’s the unpopularity of the Foxconn deal in the rural areas (although it seems to be quite popular in Walker’s historical suburban bastions of Waukesha and Ozaukee counties) and, of course, there’s Trump who might well energize some Democrat commitment this time, and there’s the fact that three terms is a lot for anyone and folks might be getting restless for a change.
What all this means is take the summer RV polls with a grain of salt and watch for the likely voter polls in the fall. That will give a much better indication if the Blue Wave is rising in Wisconsin.
Less than a week out from the Ohio 12th Congressional district special election. Encouraging signs for the Dems as they take an early lead in absentee and early voting. GOP claims they will make up the difference as their absentee ballot mailing was sent out after the Dems but these seem like large gaps to close and the R should be doing better in Delaware and Licking counties.
So, next Tuesday is primary day in Michigan. You don’t have to register with a party to vote in their primary, but you do have to pick just one. I change my choice every couple of years based on which side has the more interesting races. This time around there’s no question in my mind that the most interesting race is the Democratic governor nomination.
Gretchen Whitmer is the front-runner, but there are two others trying for an upset. Shri Thanedar and Abdul El-Sayed are both well to the left of Whitmer. Which is unfortunate, because it seems very likely that they’ll split whatever progressives turn out and end up well behind Whitmer. I like El-Sayed, myself, but he’s already facing a steep uphill battle as a Muslim (yeah, lots of Michiganders have issues with that, sadly) and having Thanedar pulling his voters won’t help. As for Shri (as he advertises himself), it’s a really bad time for a non-political businessman running for his first major political office. We just elected one of those in Rick Snyder, and the bad news on his watch…Flint water alone is enough…has soured the public on that archetype.
We’ll see what happens next week, but my prediction is that Whitmer will win comfortably despite not getting my personal vote. Not terrible since she’s miles better than any of the Republicans. In the general election, I think she’d be the favorite regardless of who ends up with the R. Republicans have to fight both anti-Trump voter turnout and the drag of being associated with Snyder.
The special election is just to fill the remainder of the term, that is through the end of this year, right? I believe the same two candidates will be facing off again in November.
Schuette winning in November would get people longing for the Snyder days pretty fast. It does look like the Democrat primary is going to be the interesting one so definitely where my vote will be cast.
Have you found any unbiased sources that would paint a positive picture of Shri? He made a bad first impression for me, and I’ve really only seen negative articles about him.
