As People Disregard Information, the Best Liar Will Win

Who benefits most from an ignorant electorate?

The ignorance of the general public was on display during the April 1 “Meet the Press.”  During that broadcast, a very recent AARP conference call was mentioned, in which the #1 question voiced by seniors about Obamacare was whether or not it had passed. Not only is what’s in it a mystery to 99 percent of the people – the very fact that it is law has apparently eluded many.

People on the same show also mentioned that the president planned on using his “Buffet Rule” nonsense in upcoming speeches. I’ve stopped counting the number of people who express outrage to me at Buffet’s poor secretary paying more income taxes than Warren. NOT a higher rate. More taxes. And consider that, of the eleven people I know who voted for Obama in 2008, none read his two books beforehand and none have since. Everybody has opinions, but it seems nobody cares about information.

In my more than 35 years in the field of marketing, I’ve learned that making complex sales to stupid people is far too difficult to bother with. Unfortunately, in this case, it’s not as simple as ignoring the ignorant and unintelligent and selling only to customers capable of understanding the sales presentation. There aren’t enough of them going to the polls.

We are past the tipping point here. We are to be ruled, our government is to be chosen by a majority who depend on it for hand-outs and support, and by an even bigger majority too intellectually slothful and ignorant to discern truth from fiction. It will be the best liar who wins.

The media isn’t helpful in this, and certainly can’t be counted on to aid people in understanding the facts of the day. We have hardly any news media. We have only opinion media. And only a sliver of the population pays any attention to it anyway. They are busy with Snookie and Angry Birds.

Defeating an incumbent Democratic president is a Herculean feat. It last required Ronald Reagan to do it, a candidate the party leadership did not want, a candidate judged too conservative. It required a truly exceptional candidate, even though the Democrat incumbent had made quite a mess of things. But maybe more importantly, it required a far less ignorant, better informed, more engaged voter population. That’s what made Reagan Democrats possible – their ability and willingness to reason and think for themselves rather than being herded about as mindless cattle by their union bosses. But today I don’t see that exceptional candidate and I don’t see that thoughtful voter population.

Which do you think more people who, sadly, will vote in November had knowledge of last week: (a) the President’s stage-whispered, treasonous exchange with the out-going president of Russia, when both thought microphones off, (b) the teams winning and losing through the Final Four, or (c) the size of the Mega Millions jackpot?  Further, which of the three got the most media coverage?

Given this, it’s hard to see how Gov. Mitt Romney, portrayed and labeled as Evil Rich, triumphs in a contest against President Tax-The-Rich and his media conspirators.