Let him who has ears, hear!
I have stopped marveling at the laziness and the lack of curiosity among the typical American voter.
Most of us have, in our pockets, devices with which we can access the sum total of human knowledge. There is nothing one cannot investigate. There is nothing one cannot look up.
But here's why I, as a librarian, have job security. The fact is that the vast majority of Americans look things up and then get suckered in by misinformation, or outright lies. We saw this—and still see this—during Covid. We have as Secretary of Health a walking lie factory. And people are simply not literate enough to discern truth from falsehood, facts from fiction. To paraphrase the poet, for them TV is reality.
Again, we have these devices in our pockets or our purses on which we can discover anything we want. We look up recipes. We look up movie showtimes. We spend hours scrolling through stupid Tik Tok videos. This "Nobody" person above obviously has access to the same interne that I do. But it never occurred to him, or to those like him, to use this marvel of human genius to go to Kamala Harris' website, or to go to her YouTube channel, and ascertain for himself what her positions on political questions were. I remember people caviling that they "didn't know where she stands"; of course, it was all on her campaign site. It was on her YouTube channel for her rallies. It was as simple as clicking a button, and you had an insight into a candidate at which even fifteen years ago would have been amazing.
If you're expecting the legacy media to do the job they once did, well, you'll be waiting a long time, buddy. May as well settle down and wait for Godot. Media has long ago abdicated any responsibility to educate its readers, listeners, and viewers. At best they regurgitate press releases. At worst—and they're mostly on that end of the spectrum—they chase what will get them clicks and eyeballs. They will elevate the sensational and ignore the boring but factual. And heaven forfend if you take away any of their shiny toys, like a twenty-year war in Central Asia with no hope of it ever ending unless a president just ripped off the bandaid and got us out of there. (The media's jihad against President Joe Biden began the day he announced that he was withdrawing from Afghanistan, honoring an agreement that his predecessor made with the vile Taliban terrorist group. And here we are now.)
So, now it's quite obvious that the media cannot be counted upon to inform the public. That leaves it to us, as individual voters, to do the requisite research. And it's not even that hard. Again, go to a candidate's website, go to their speeches, both on their sites and on YouTube. All that's required is a little time, minutes out of your day. Surely that's a low price to protect your rights, no?
No. Of course not. It's too dear. It expects that one thinks, analyses, dissects. It expects that one leave aside one's pastimes for a few minutes, maybe half an hour, to read bullet points. It's too onerous to listen to a 20 minute stump speech. As "Nobody" indicates, they want their food chewed for them and deposited in their mouths. Anything less and you're "not reaching the voters".
Weird. I heard the message. Ninety-two percent of Black female voters heard the message. Eighty percent of Jewish voters heard the message. Latinas heard the message. Are they somehow of superior moral fiber? Are they more intelligent? Are they more attuned to emanations from the Universe?
No, no, and no. When your life is a memory of oppression, you listen. When you still hear testimony of the cotton fields, or the pogroms, or live your life looking over your shoulder for La Migra, you listen. You listen because it will save your life. You listen because it's what you've always done.
People like "Nobody"—the majority of white people in the United States—have never once in their lives had to worry about any of this. About a cop pulling you over for driving while Black or brown. About your synagogue have swastikas painted on it. It doesn't affect you. It's a foreign world. You can have "BLM" all you want on your social media bio, or "El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido", but you don't have to worry about it. It, at the best, stirs your empathy to action. At worst, you revel in the pain. But the vast middling sort? It doesn't affect you. And it doesn't affect you because it doesn't center you. Harm reduction is "sad and dispiriting" because you won't be the one harmed. But you still need to feel righteous, as if your voice isn't what it actually is, silent. So you latch on to some omnicause like Gaza, and demand purity, and "vote your conscience", even if it dooms those without your privilege. Because, goddammit, you're special, and you should be catered to! It's not your job to educate yourself! You saw an Instagram, and that's all you need!
And most of that vast middling sort doesn't even rouse itself to that level of agitation. No. They'll watch their shows. They'll share cat memes on Facebook. And they not only won't say, "Meh, both parties are the same." No. They won't even think about it, won't let it disturb their consciousness.
I leave you with this from the Gospel of Thomas. (It is non-canonical, but shares many of its Jesus sayings with the Synoptic Gospels. And the Jesus of this gospel is a first century Timothy Leary.)
Whoever has ears, let him hear. There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, he is darkness."
Are you light, or are you darkness. And if you swear you're light, are you sure you are?
Let him who has ears, hear.