Sunday, January 19, 2020

Sunday Jan 19t

I read a lot of intellectual analyze the American electorate.  In order to do this they have to lump people into categories.  So you have farmers, and women and white non-college educated men, and evangelicals, and so on.

Now statistically the groups share some common attributes and experiences that may in fact influence how a majority of them vote.  Then again it might not.

Not every person who went to college and live in a city making a good living votes for Democrats/  Not every soybean farmer in Kansas votes for Republicans.

Each person has a different reason for voting the way they do and I sometimes think its as much about where you live as anything else.

I used to travel quite a bit and one of the things you notice in hotels that give you a free breakfast is that what is on the communal TV varies greatly by region.

In Fort Worth it was of curse local news and weather with a large dose of conservatism in every ad.  Now there are always some political ads and when I was there the people running for office were all principled conservatives.  Other ads for goods appealed to religious and patriotic impulses to push their wares.  Of course some ads were simply the same ads you see everywhere.

In California it was very different.  A lot of ads were about how environmentally conscious the vendors were.  I don't think an election was on so I didn't get direct political ads, but I doubt I would have seen that many principled conservatives there.

The point I'm making is that the media sells to the public its demographics indicate and they then reinforce those beliefs.

So when you don't understand how someone in XXXXXX could support the things they do, you might need to live with the media they get.  The messages are not the same.


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