Carrie Underwood won “American Idol” last night. It’s apparently one of the biggest stories of the day. I really don’t know much about it since I only watched the first few episodes when the really poor singers auditioned. The interesting, and probably more pertinent point of the story is that five times as many people voted of an “American Idol ” contestant, than voted in the presidential election of 2004.
This in itself is an unimaginable statistic and says volumes about the state of this country, but it also got me to thinking about my own little world, and just how out of touch those of us in the “reality based community” really are. Those of us who are actively engaged in the great battles of the American political and cultural war seem to live in a bubble where we just don’t understand what it is that moves the great mass of the American public.
This little story might illustrate the point:
I own a small restaurant with a staff of about ten or twelve waiters and busboys. They consist of the usual mix of college students trying to offset their 30k+ tuition fees, and aspiring actors or singers. Amongst them have been political science majors, international studies majors, pre-law students, Middle Eastern studies majors, and those studying history. Needless to say, with that kind of mix, the between rush conversations often turn to current events and politics. Between folding the napkins and polishing silverware anything from Iraq to stem cell research might come up. In some ways, having so many “scholars” around has been like having a little “think tank” of my very own. It’s always been an interesting group and there have been many very stimulating discussions. Before each election, they urge one another to register to vote and I’m happy to say they all have taken part in our great democratic experiment, some for the very first time.
It’s gone on pretty much like that for the past nine years. As each employee left, a new one seemed to come to fill their place at the round table. Perhaps, because I enjoy being surrounded by bright and engaging young people I’ve always tended to look for those qualities when I’ve interviewed perspective new employees. I’ve hired people from all sides of the political spectrum and some of our best conversations have been with those who’ve held views different from my own. As long as everyone argued their case in a concise and coherent manner, there has always been a respect for differing opinions. We lived in our own little world, not unlike the world I feel many of us in the politically active world inhabit. A world based on intellectual honesty and passion
A short time ago it all changed when I had to hire two new waiters to fill the void created by some graduating seniors. The new waiters were older, “pros”. They had worked in numerous other restaurants and had careers stretching back fifteen or twenty years. From a business point of view it was a good move as it made the transition and training easy, but the dynamic of our daily conversations started to shift. Although both of the “new guys” are well educated, watch the news and read the papers ever day, their input tended to be more of the “Runaway Bride” variety. It’s as if these guys are walking encyclopedias of pop and pulp culture. They know ever aspect of the latest exploits of Paris Hilton, and can quote verbatim the daily testimony from the Michael Jackson trial. From Desperate Housewives to American Idol they are the masters. Yet, they are generally well informed, and politely engage in our discussions of events of the day, with input that is quite knowledgeable and insightful. Given their druthers though, they tend to prefer to steer the conversation to the more sensational and tawdry stories.
This morning as I came in, one of the “new guys” was setting up for the lunch rush and caught my eye. “I know you won’t think its funny”, he said,” but did you see that more people voted for “American Idol” than voted in the Presidential election.” There was smugness to his tone, as if to say, “See, I was right all along, more people do care about that kind of stuff, then the egghead news you guys like to discuss.” And of course he was right, but as I walked to my small office the exchange left me thinking about a much larger question.
Those of us who inhabit wonk world, on both sides of the fence, seem to exist in a bubble where we feel everyone would be as passionate about the issues as we are, given the right circumstances. We assert that those who are not engaged on any given topic simply just don’t know enough about it. With an almost evangelical zeal, we believe that if only we could get the message out things would be different. Given the knowledge, people would surely make the right decisions. We blame the media for not doing their jobs, politicians for not speaking up, and ourselves for not being able to change either.
It’s as if we revert back to some adolescent mindset where we really believe that if we could only convince our friend to listen to just one more song on the album, they would surely know that our favorite band is in fact the greatest band that ever existed. But at some point you come to the realization that one more “Sugar Magnolia” or “Trukin” is not going to convince your friend that Jerry Garcia is a God.
The “news guys” brought that point home by poking holes in my little bubble world of misconceptions. These guys are not uninformed or ignorant of the issues. They are well informed and know what’s going, they just prefer to live in a different American cultural universe. Whether it has to do with cynicism or apathy, they’ve decided that Michael Jackson is just as important as John Bolton, and the American Idol is as relevant as any other election.
I believe that they represent the greatest challenge to those of us who wish to enact change. Ignorance can always be overcome, but a conscious decision to choose infotainment over information is not easily countered. Those that have intentionally chosen to disengage will be the hardest to re-engage.
Bubble Girl here. I must confess I don’t know either Paris Hilton or American Idol – I’ve heard the names but I couldn’t tell you anything more. People who tend to be so disengaged from reality cannot be awoken until their lifestyle is disrupted (by new rules or diminished freedoms) and they’re forced to pay attention.
But the question is who’s reality are they disengaged from. 500 million people voted in American Idol vs @100 million for president.
They are certianly tuned in to “their reality”
Considering there are only approx 280 million people in the US, including kids, that is a bit skewed. Either there are multiple votes, in which case we should factor in the primaries as well – or else there are votes from other countries.
But the point is taken – it’s an obsession.
The 500 mil vote total touted by the press was based upon the total amount of votes cast during the season.
I hope that clears that one up.
The bigger question is about how alien it seems to many of us that an educated and informed person could view that “election” as equally significant to a real one. The fact that the comparison was made in numerous news accounts only re-enforces the notion. I think most of us find that to be incomprehensible.
Then the press is intentionally skewing the figures as well. They need to make adjustments for times voted in order to get an idea of how many actual people voted.
As I commented in Ductapes diary the other day, I too, would like to be able to lead my life doing the things that I enjoy, I really would. I hate politics, but not nearly as much as injustice, which I would like to see put in the past. I grew up in a very politically active family with world events dominating our dinner conversations, and I have no excuse for ignorance.
People like to have fun, and for the most part I doubt they can really picture injustice – or else they are too lazy to do so, since they don’t want to be distracted from their lives. To learn to pay attention is not so easy, but I do believe it can be done (the cold shower method).
made me curious and I checked this site and indeed you are pretty close as to US pop.. But yes, there were many multiple votes I am sure.
Population Clocks
U.S. 296,216,946
World 6,444,083,041
16:24 GMT (EST+5) May 27, 2005
https://www.census.gov/popclock/
Thanks for the link – I didn’t realize it was already so high, I think I’m stuck in the 1990 census.
I am not a bubble girl: I know all about Paris, Carrie, Jessica, Brittany, Michael Jackson, etc. and I do this because I have always loved that aspect of American life. I watched Apprentice, American Idol, and currrely Gray’s Anatomy. I find a constant diet of politics can damage digestive system.
I am emersed in politics now so much because of the current world situation, and because now I have access via the internet to a whole world of info and well as to sites like this.
One point about the votes for American Idol, they were all telephone votes and maybe if we could have phone votes for elected officials the numbers would be even higher than American Idol.
Problem is degree of difficulty! Easy to telepnone vote, hard to vote in elections. You have to register and drive and stand and wait and then have your votes thrown out or counted incorrectly.
is the preconceived notion that those of us in “the reality based community” have that the only reason people don’t care more about the issues is that they are ignorant of them.
Since we spend most of our time with so many like-minded people, a mindset sets in that alloews to believe that everyone would want to be like us if they only knew the same things we know.
But there are many people who are aware of what is going on, they just don’t feel the same outrage as we do. Why that is, I don’t know.
and an important one. Most of my friends are intelligent, well-educated, well-informed, and consider themselves liberals/Democrats/progressives. But I’m the only one that gets so worked up – who is always trying to figure out a way to DO something to stop what is happening in this country.
Sometimes they even cheer me on – much positive feedback for going to testify at the Senate last week, and from time to time one will tell me they appreciate the numerous emails I send out about whatever the current outrage is.
I’ve wondered what the answer to your question is, too, and haven’t come up with much. Tonight, thinking about it, the one thing that comes to mind is that I feel responsible somehow for what is happening. I feel like I have a responsibility to do something about it. I feel frustrated that I don’t know how to make much of a difference and guilty that I’m not doing more.
Many people don’t seem to feel that, somehow. They deplore what is happening, they hate where our country is going, they despise Bush and his puppetmasters, but . . . it’s like they’re watching a story on the news about some horrible accident and they say, isn’t that terrible, they feel genuine sympathy for the victims, but it doesn’t really touch them personally.
But I have no idea why I feel so personally responsible, and so many well-informed people don’t seem to.
Like I said:
We blame the media for not doing their jobs, politicians for not speaking up, and ourselves for not being able to change either.
I thinks that’s one of our problems. When faced with those who have just “turned off the noise” we find it
incomprehensible
I’ve said this before in another thread, so cover your eyes if you’ve seen it. I believe that a fair number of people have some idea of what is going on, but probably somewhat less knowledge than blog denizens. But for many, the feeling is that they can do little to change the path our government follows. It’s not that they don’t care. They are busy making life as good as they can for them and their families. Pop culture is merely entertainment.
but no need to apologize for repeating it, because I think it’s an important point and one that many people have a really hard time grasping.
I think there are a whole range of reasons why people who are well-informed don’t give a lot of energy to trying to change the political world we’re living in now.
Years ago, one year after the Yellowstone fires of 1988, I was at another National Park and a park ranger was recounting her experience fighting the fire. She was very angry about it. She had been sent there and had spent weeks battling the flames 12-15 hours a day, for several weeks with no break. The media were broadcasting hysterical “the park is burning down” stories every day, Congresscritters were up in arms and seeking out cameras at every opportunity to declare that “something must be done!” When all the while, as she said, “We all knew that the fires would go out when the snows came, and not before, no matter what we did or didn’t do. And the snows came and the fires went out, and we were risking our lives for nothing.”
I think many people feel that our country is on fire but that eventually the snows will come. There have been bad times before, there will be bad times again. In the meantime, they’re trying to get on with their own lives as best they can.
My question, that I often ask myself, is are they right? I pretty much tuned out of political reality during the Reagan years – come to think of it, that was the last time I quit watching TV, as I have now. It just made me too angry and generally crazed every time I let myself think too much about what he was doing to our country. I really hated his guts, as much as I do Bush’s. (I think the invasion and occupation of Iraq is a greater crime than anything that happening during the Reagan years, but I think Reagan planted the seeds that we are now harvesting – note the adoration of St Ron when he died last summer – and I will never forgive him for that.)
I had just had a baby and I spent those years raising my daughter and going to graduate school – as you say, making life as good as I could for myself and my family. Is what I’m doing now – obsessively informing myself and trying to get involved in the political world – going to have any more positive effect than withdrawing from it all as I did then? I don’t know.
I do know that the issue is not to “inform” people that things are totally fucked up – most Americans do know that. The question is can we convince more people that getting involved and taking action will make a difference? And will it?
This comment nails it for me-I had just been having this discussion with a friend who pointed out that I talk about government misdeeds using “we”-we are torturing people, we are killing people, and so on. She uses “they”-but I have no idea why I feel responsible and she doesn’t. Arrogance? Naivety? I took that middle school civics class way too seriously? I have no clue.
that we are all unwilling to face . . . a “flaw”, perhaps a fatal flaw, in the notion of democracy itself. If I were in a position to appoint the mythical “benevolent dictator” to rule America (or the World) I am reasonably certain that I would not choose an IQ 100 “Average” American to fill that role (and I doubt, based on your choice of staff, that you would either). Yet that is exactly who we designate as our ultimate ruler in our “democracy” . . . the “average” American.
The real myth is that the mythical “average man” will rise above himself and elect to public office others more suited to the task than himself. The reality is George Bush. Our “democracy” ends up being ruled not even by the “average man”, but by those with even fewer scruples who prove best at deceit and manipulation of the mostly ignorant (and none too bright) masses. Enter the Strausian neo-cons, who see the flaw, and see no reason not to exploit it . . .
I tend to agree that at the present time the “average man” is looking more for someone they would prefer to “have a beer with” when looking for a leader.
I like to think that that kind of “everyman” thinking is somewhat cyclical. Those whom the right would demonize today as liberal elite, eggheads, were called the “best and the brightest” during JFK’s administration.
In general people like to think that those who pull the strings of power are fact brighter than the average. That’s why the likes of Dr.Rice, or even Dr.Kissenger sound so good to the average Joe. Even if they elect an idiot like Bush or Nixon, there’s always some smart, educated person behind the scenes to make sure the idiot doesn’t screw the pooch.
but I fear true that when the government is run from “behind the scene” it is always run by scoundrels and liars. Condiliar and Killinger are indeed good examples of that.
The one real strength of democracy is that it is all done (in theory, anyway) in the open, where everyone can see. The neo-cons understand this, which is why they are moving every element of government that they can out of the public eye.
as an explanation for Bush’s re-election (?) in Nov. – the someone I’d like to have a beer with meme. I think that was pretty much cooked up by the MSM – it was a lazy way to explain Bush’s popularity.
I find the PIPA poll from last October – right before the election – that showed that Bush voters thought that Bush supported the same policies and programs they did – which were actually progressive policies that he most emphatically did not support – most telling.
So I guess maybe there is a point to working on the “informing people” aspect after all. Even “well-informed liberals.” I was fairly stunned this weekend when one of those explained that he wasn’t more active (he was a very energetic activist against the Vietnam war years ago), because, he explained, “more than 60% of the American people voted for Bush last Fall and when that many people are supporting what he’s doing, what can you do?” When I pointed out that only 51% of the votes (the ones that were cast and counted, not including all of people who were disenfranchised for one reason or another) he looked quite stunned. “I had no idea,” he said, “if it really was that close, maybe it would be possible to change things.”
I was also troubled by the argument running through the thread that says people know what’s going on, but don’t care or feel they can’t do anything about it…
That may be true for some people, but I think ignorance of the facts is a much larger factor in most of our western ‘democracies’. The survey evidence you point to seems to cofirm this.
You can’t necessarily blame people for just getting on with their lives, particularly when they may be struggling to get and keep work, feed & clothe and educate kids etc etc. In these circumstances their knowledge of the world comes from what they see on a couple of minutes worth of TV ‘news’ a week (perhaps seen accidentally while trying to find their favourite entertainment) and from what we in Australia call ‘shock jocks’ on the radio (right-wing talk show hosts). You can try to combat the lies and bias of the MSM and the shock jocks.
Very good point about the telephone voting, Diane! It is more than likely that there were actually 20 to 50 million ‘voters’ who voted 10 to 25 times each on average for the Idol.
It is not only likely, it is a known fact that Idol voters make multiple phone calls for their favorite. There have even been complaints of unfairness when a particularly good singer gets booted off because the not-so-good one had a small town that organized phone banks to support him/her.
So the basic starting point of this diary is incorrect. There were NOT more people voting for Idol than for president. There were simply more votes cast.
However, the real question of why more people don’t seem to care about politics is still a good one and some insightful answers have been provided in this thread. I directly asked some of my relatives, friends and associates about this before the last election. Their excuses were:
BUT, I did make a difference because I was able to convince most of them to register to vote. I reminded them to go vote the day before and, in a couple of cases, the day of. And, most importantly, I convinced them to vote for Kerry.
So, the answer to our dilemma isn’t necessarily getting more people to be obsessive wonks like we are. It’s building bigger, broader networks of influence that we can trigger at appropriate times. My circle of influence trusts my judgement. They rely on me to let them know about issues and actions. That’s my unpaid public service and the reward for enduring the daily state of outrage and angst that results from paying attention to politics.
They rely on me to let them know about issues and actions. That’s my unpaid public service and the reward for enduring the daily state of outrage and angst that results from paying attention to politics.
I think that for many of us doing our “public service” of informing friends and family is one if the best ways to beat the feelings of hopelessness that were expressed by others in this thread
Good, lively diary!
You’re right, it has brought up some great points.
Thanks for the post. Recommended.
I consider myself someone who has one foot in both worlds–politics and pop culture. I can sit here and read the blogs all day, watch CSPAN, etc. but I also enjoy the guilty pleasure of watching American Idol, an occasional Access Hollywood, etc.
One of the things I realized during last year’s campaign was that I can’t stop harping. A lot of my friends came to me to ask questions about the candidates right before Election Day; they had heard me harping for months and wanted more info. I managed to get my cousin whom I live with to register and vote for the first time (she’s 25 and voted for Kerry). The way I see it, we have to build our voting base person-by-person; and if my screaming and harping will get at least one of my friends/coworkers/family members to cast a vote on the Dem side then we’re that much closer to victory.
As an aside, remember that American Idol’s “voting base” has a significant number under the age of 18, so it’s hard to compare the votes cast to the Presidential Election. I work at a middle school, never underestimate the power of rabid teenagers swooning over someone like Constantine.
I can’t believe I just wrote that. meh 😛
As you should. I just had to spend a bit of time right now looking up American Idol and Paris Hilton (IMHO she gives Twiggy a run for her money). So I’m none the wiser because I don’t have the patience to read more about stuff that doesn’t interest me.
It doesn’t matter what your interests are – people need to do things they enjoy. I guess it’s about finding balance.
When I was out in the general workforce It was mind-boggling to me how many people hated their jobs (I guess I believe if you’re going to spend time doing something you should give it your best). I would guess this also impacts the need to disengage from unpleasantries. Duty has been done, and time off becomes about fun.
You have it exactly right. I am not a fan of my job, and am working to rectify that situation; as soon as 5:00 hits, I completely disengage and find my “happy place”. For me, the blogs are part of that, but for others, it sometimes involves an addiction to reality t.v. (some of us are good at having addictions to both)
People can vote more than once for their Idol favorites. It is one of the fundamental flaws of the program… that and the fact that Americans are generally idiots when it comes to evaluating musical talent. Some people may even have autodialers set up to call as many times as is mechanically/electronically possible. 500 million votes may be 1 million people voting 500 times each.
In this case, more votes cast does not mean more people voting.