So if the answer to the OP is just: it’s not possible for Biden to get any traction because prices are significantly higher than before he started his term and that completely drowns out any positive news…then fair enough.
It still wouldn’t explain why people believe the polar opposite of the positive news i.e. the disinformation that has been spread on conservative media, but it would have been a constructive direction for this thread to have gone in.
Instead we’ve had “graphs and charts”, “disinformation goblins” and just an outright refusal to acknowledge objective facts. (ETA: not you, obvs)
If only! It seems to me more common (amplified by social media and hate radio in recent years, but it’s also human nature) that unsupported opinions are hardest to change, because almost by definition, they rely on faith — and/or, when the facts are pointed out, it would be too embarrassing to acknowledge them. (I’ve surely make this mistake from the progressive side).
What percentage would you roughly attribute to misinformation and what percentage to people’s lived experiences with facets of economic pessimism (higher retail costs, interest rates, housing costs, insurance costs, etc)?
Related, what precisely would you call misinformation? Sure, if a talking head or GOP PAC Twitter meme says that we have the worst unemployment ever that would be misinformation. But what about if a news channel selects stories about grocery prices over stories about the stock market? Is that “misinformation”? Selecting factual stories about the 22% increase in car insurance rates over stories about the unemployment rate? What about if they just run a story about Trump’s 10pt lead on handling the economy? That suggests that Biden isn’t doing well with the economy though it’s not what the story actually says.
Love your passion but that doesn’t really answer the question. So you’re saying that any stories about retail prices that aren’t also directly about the profits of stores is disinformation meant to sway voters away from Biden?
47.3%
A meaningful answer to a meaningful question.
More seriously, I put misinformation down entirely to why people believe the US is in recession, or that unemployment has gone up, or that the US is no longer energy independent.
I put it down partially to feelings on inflation as well actually. Because it’s become a bit of a meme to find and share examples of something priced crazy high then imply that’s a typical and not exceptional sample.
Anything other than saying unemployment is at a record low is at least misinformation and, more likely, disinformation.
It can be, actually, because there can be selection bias, as I just alluded. And if salaries are beating inflation, such that people are better off - after inflation - than before the pandemic, that’s pretty important context to mention.
Meant to? Probably not. Clearly having that effect? That should be obvious.
If there are stories about the rising cost of eggs and chicken meat that does not inform the viewer that there’s a current Bird Flu pandemic that’s already killed nearly 100,000,000 chickens then those viewers are being manipulated whether it’s intentional or not.
Ok, so you have no idea how large a problem misinformation is or seemingly what you think it is. Just that it’s absolutely for sure the real major issue (aside from the occasional handwave “Well, I know about inflation duh”) that makes people downbeat on the economy.
You’ve spent this whole thread trying to say we shouldn’t be citing numbers, we should be focusing on the issues.
And now, because I am unwilling to play the game of putting a percentage figure that would somehow summarize the total feelings of all Americans, no discussion is apparently possible.
…so obviously we have very different perceptions on how much these things impact the current climate. I’m trying to find out how different. Likewise, putting a rough number (“47.3! BURN!!”) on it is more effective if we know what we’re talking about. 90% attributed to malicious false percentages is different than 50% attributed to “Well, I don’t think these otherwise factual stories give enough context”
And you keep saying how important they are lol omg rofl irony!!111!11!!!1
Or, you know, you could just answer instead of dodging it.
Yeah, the actual facts matter…at least to some of us.
Your questions have been answered over and over again, but apparently the answers don’t fit your narrative.
Can you give us an example of an answer that does?
Cool, can you link me to where people are talking about, in relative terms, how MUCH “misinformation” is creating this climate versus other individual factors and what they mean by misinformation? I’ll admit to having missed the posts.
What?
I’ve said repeatedly in this thread that inflation has a massive impact on how people feel about the economy. This should come as no surprise because everybody in this thread has said the same thing.
Yet you post 20 times, 30 times, more? that people see the price of groceries. Yes, we know this.
But why are you so keen for me to guesstimate a number when you choose to ignore the actual numbers based on real data. Numbers that started this whole thread.
Eg 49% of people believe unemployment has increased. That’s pretty strong evidence right there of the power of disinformation.
So I’ll ask all over again: do you acknowledge that half of Americans believing clear misinformation is evidence that this is also a big factor in people’s negative perceptions of the economy?
Not that it’ll matter since making up what I said is a running theme here but I never said “no one is allowed to use any numbers ever hurr hurr duhhhh!!!” or whatever you want to imagine for your sick burns. I’ve repeatedly said that you won’t get any traction from trying to change people’s minds by saying those numbers to them especially without also acknowledging (to them) the issues they feel they’re having.
But it’s a lot easier to strawman your way out of answering a basic question than it is to answer it, I suppose.
To give you the benefit of the doubt, I did a thread search for each time you said inflation. You haven’t really said this (by my reading), given sort of “Of course inflation is bad, duh” style one liners a few times, and downplayed inflation by citing unemployment/salary metrics on probably a 2:1 scale to acknowledging it.
This is ignoring the fact that inflation isn’t the only reason people would use kitchen table finances to feel downboat about the economy: gas prices, insurance rates, healthcare, housing, interest rates, etc which you haven’t really mentioned at all from what I can tell. That said, you work “misinformation” into basically every post but refuse to say how much you think it actually impacts it.
Played golf this morning with an older gent I’ve known for 30+ years. What I would consider a strong fiscal conservative. Not a Trump fan, but believed Biden would be worse for the economy, and critical of many liberal positions/policies. IMO, not insane. And someone I’ve had rational discussions with.
This morning I asked him whether he thought Trump’s conviction would have any effect on the election. He said something like, “A lot of people don’t have any idea what’s going on.” I thought he was talking about the trial, and responded, “Yeah - how could anyone NOT be aware?” But his rejoinder was something like, “All you have to do is see the price of groceries…”
I chose not to go any further on this lovely morning on the golf course. But just striking that he would avoid any criticism of Trump, and would go right to the price of groceries.
Something like 55-60% of respondents have said they’re not following or barely following the Trump hush money trial, which is arguably the most low-info friendly trial full of salacious details (and the only one where anything had actually been happening besides legal delays) and one of the most important trials in American history.
Which sort of ties back around the the economy thing; people just ain’t that tied into the news.
Amen.
I have this funny feeling that I finished my last post with a question mark.
And that the only person here who keeps putting silly, caricature things in scare quotes, is you.
Experience has taught me that this doesn’t really help get answers.
I’ll play along though instead of throwing a fit over it…
I believe that this question is based on the flawed premise that “misinformation” (which you still haven’t really defined for these purposes) is the sole cause of these perceptions. As previously linked, people’s perceptions on whether or not we’re in a recession can be influenced by smaller factors they view as important such as fuel prices or retail bills rather than a sage reading of macroeconomic reports. We don’t have people saying “I’ve heard that the GDP is down 4.1 points this quarter!” but rather a vague indication that they think the economy is headed in a negative direction, thus (to them) a “recession”. Similar answers apply to unemployment: as you hear of people looking for jobs, you assume things are dire. Connected, if you think we’re in a recession because of your perception of insurance rates, home prices, credit card interest, etc then you’re probably also going to assume that ALL economic indicators are poor including unemployment rates. Again, this doesn’t require a talking head to give you fake numbers as targeted malicious misinformation.
So part of properly answering this question would depend heavily on what we’re classifying as “misinformation” and part of it would depend on how much people are integrating that into their flawed perceptions about the economy as a whole.
