20/20's John Stossel encouraging young people not to vote
This hit my email box thanks to Jefferson Smith:
On Friday at 10pm, 20/20 will run a piece on the youth vote called "Maybe It's Your Civic Duty Not To Vote," in which they suggest that uninformed voters - primarily young people - not turn out to the polls. In talking to the youth group, HeadCount, featured in the piece, it is clear that 20/20 and Stossel were less interested in discovering the truth about young voters while filming their piece than in crafting a hatchet job meant to cast doubt on the growing youth vote.There is a lot that is wrong with this piece. Yes, there are many uninformed voters, but that category is not limited to young people, who are unfortunately the main target of this piece. Anyone who has ever watched Jay Leno could tell you that many Americans are uninformed about current events. Unfortunately, some see that as an excuse to rob people of their constitutional rights, and Stossel and ABC are happy to play along.
There is more to the email, but you get the gist. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that ABC News is participating in voter suppression. What do you think?
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October 10, 2008 |
Karol Collymore | Comments (69 so far)
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Posted by: Rulial | Oct 10, 2008 10:41:38 AM
I think Stossel is right that it's bad when people cast uninformed votes. But the solution isn't to encourage people to stay home; the solution is encouraging people to become informed and then vote.
Your civic duty isn't merely to vote, but to cast an informed vote.
Posted by: Jefferson Smith | Oct 10, 2008 10:46:01 AM
The email Karol referred to was from Michael Connery, author of Youth to Power. I am amazed that ABC is putting this on the air (but not too surprised that Stossel is doing it).
Four thoughts on the matter:
1) I suppose we could offer a simple test to voters: if you pass it, you should vote; if not, you should stay home. Or we could do it based on education level: if you've graduated from high school or college, you should vote; if not, you should stay home. Perhaps we could just use proxies for informed-ness: if you're a landowner, or if you've been a citizen for more than a couple generations, then you should vote; otherwise, we should leave it to the wiser people. On the other hand, perhaps it's better for us to abide by the central Constitutional principle that democracy works better when more people do it.
2) Oregon needs good youth-vote buzz, not bad: Oregon tied with Kansas in 2004 for the nation's biggest gap between older and younger voter turnout. We need to shrink that gap. We've seen bountiful voter suppression efforts in recent history; hopefully local media will do what can be done to help and cover the matter in a more positive way. In Oregon, folks at the Bus/Building Votes, the Student Vote Coaliton (including OSA and OSPIRG), and across the nation, including Headcount, Trick or Vote, New Era Colorado, ForwardMontana, Traction (North Carolina), Empower Alabama, Rock the Vote, USSA, Young Voter PAC, the League of Young Voters, and others (with the exception of big-brand Rock the Vote all pretty much scrappy, underfunded efforts) are working to boost youth participation...we need to spur those efforts, not undermine them.
3) Improved voter education is indeed vital. We need civic education in schools. We need support for voter education efforts like those provided by the League of Women Voters, the Classroom Law Project, and others. The answer isn't asking people to disengage from democracy; the answer is to ask people to engage more.
4) I actually think the poll test is a bad idea.
Posted by: Karol | Oct 10, 2008 10:49:36 AM
A poll test is terrible. It will highlight the holes in the education system more than it makes an example of young people.
Posted by: Glen HD28 | Oct 10, 2008 10:54:14 AM
I'll bet that the millions upon millions of young people who gather by the TV set every Friday night at 10PM to watch John Stossel tell them what to do will nod their heads and tear up their voter registration cards.
Or not.
More likely, many of these same millions of young REGISTERED VOTERS have just finished a 5-9PM shift at the local Obama & (insert local Dem candidate name here) office and are heading to the bar, nightclub or perhaps for Fourth Meal.
Stossel clearly has no idea who watches his show. Young people get their political news from Comdey Central and the internets, not ABC.
Posted by: Stacy6 | Oct 10, 2008 10:56:11 AM
This assumes that younger voters actually care what middle aged asshats like John Stossel have to say. ;-)
Yes, I think it's a bad idea and horribly irresponsible for a major network to run this kind of story. Like Rulial wrote, the solution is absolutely to encourage voters to become informed, not stay home because they're not. And it's horrendously anti-democratic -indeed, anti-American- to suggest that citizens not vote. However, let's not give Stossel and his collaborators as much influence as they assume they have. Mockery is the most appropriate response.
Someone should ask Stossel a list of questions about the issues at stake and see how well informed HE is.
Posted by: Annie | Oct 10, 2008 11:16:09 AM
I have it on good authority that when the woman said there are "12" she was actually making an attempt at answering how many Supreme Court justices there are, not the number of senators. Granted, she's still wrong, but she's a lot closer to 9 than to 100. I think what Stossel should be focusing on is that we have uninformed people on the GOP ticket (cough...Palin..cough) and not that uninformed people might be casting a ballot. But, as many of the other comments have said, it is important to inform voters, not discourage them from going to the polls. If we educate and engage youth voters, then they will become lifetime informed voters. Besides, it's not as if the 'experienced' voters have done a great job over the last 8 years.
Posted by: Matt Singer | Oct 10, 2008 11:20:54 AM
As proof that irony isn't dead, within hours of hearing of Stossel's piece, I also saw a copy of this email from my former U.S. Senator to my county election administrator.
I wonder what Stossel thinks of such an ill-educated man not just voting in elections, but in the U.S. Senate for 18 years.
I'm sure Jeff and others who have spent long hours registering voters and knocking doors can attest to this as well, but some young voters are amazingly well informed about obscure elements of civic life and some older voters are amazingly ill-informed.
For what it is worth, I'm not sure that there is actually a good argument for a typical voter to worry about the exact number of members of the U.S. Senate or the Supreme Court. And a voter who isn't particularly concerned about abortions or judicial issues is probably just fine being ignorant of Roe v. Wade.
The particular genius of democracy is that by consolidating a lot of opinions without anyone being allowed to determine which are smart, which are dumb, which are right, and which are wrong, we've found that we get the answers more often correct as a society than we do otherwise.
Here in Montana, we just successfully defeated a voter suppression effort -- more details at www.MontanaVoterSuppression.org -- that targeted not only usual suspects (new registrants, American Indians, college students), but some unlikely ones as well (me, a good friend and soldier about to deploy to Kuwait). The bad news is that all of us can be targeted by these voter suppression efforts. The good news is that pushed back against correctly, voters' rights can be protected and the perpetrators can be held accountable, both legally and politically.
Posted by: Carl Fisher | Oct 10, 2008 11:21:11 AM
It's a good thing that most young people don't know who John Stossel is and for that matter would even watch his show. Why would young people watch ABC, when the Daily Show and Colbert Report are on Comedy Central?
Posted by: Katy | Oct 10, 2008 11:25:24 AM
John Stossel is a right wing crazy. He's even lectured at right wing oragnization gatherings (I don't have the ability to look this stuff up and provide links at the moment).
Jefferson's #3 is I think the most crucial thing we can do, it's why I got involved in the Bus Project all those years ago. The answer is of course educating people about the political process and encouraging them to engage in it. John Stossel is (as my niece would say) a bad guy.
Posted by: oregonian37 | Oct 10, 2008 11:31:26 AM
So let's continue to not teach civics in school anymore, fill the news with "non-news", end up with uninformed voters, blame them for it, and then tell them to stay home.
Maybe It's Your Civic Duty Not To Vote
That has got to be the most offensive twist on what "civic duty" is that I have ever seen, not to mention insulting and ignorant.
Young people are not uninformed, they just don't inform themselves the same way people have in the past, nor do they simply accept the priorities of what they should be informed about that the media and elite attempt to spoon-feed them. Young people have minds of their own and folks like Stossel simply don't know what to do about that.
Posted by: jonno | Oct 10, 2008 11:40:39 AM
I'm not that old, and I'm not a parent yet, but it seems to me that the least effective way to get a young person to not do something is to tell them not to do it. Seems it has the opposite effect, most of the time.
And this take by Stossel is wrong and irresponsible. Do we really need less participation in the system on the part of young people? Come on.
Posted by: meg | Oct 10, 2008 11:57:44 AM
I think people that pay zero taxes (or negative taxes for that matter) should have no vote. I also believe that there should be a scale so that people that pay more taxes (the so-called evil-rich) should have more votes.
Why should people that are dependent on the government get a say so of who runs it. It's similar to inmates getting to pick the prison warden.
Posted by: oregonian37 | Oct 10, 2008 12:16:00 PM
So who exactly determined that young people are dependent upon the government? I've paid taxes since I was 16 years old. I don't get any more special consideration on my return than anyone else does, nor do the young people I see around me working and paying taxes every week. What exactly is the argument you are trying to make here Meg? I won't even get into the stratification of the economic system in this country and who is paying what taxes. I'm just not sure what that has to do with young people.
Posted by: Sue Hagmeier | Oct 10, 2008 12:17:37 PM
meg:
Nice demonstration of lack of civics education. Also of contempt for America, its laws and its history. Way to go.
Posted by: Mark Twain | Oct 10, 2008 12:18:46 PM
Any of the following should disqualify people from having the franchise:
They attend NASCAR events.
They like country music.
They think Sarah Palin is qualified for national office.
They drive a Ford Excursion.
They perceive the mainstream media as liberal.
They watch Fox News.
They find themselves nodding in agreement to Wall Street Journal Editorials.
They think Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin(sp?) are smart, rational, and sexy.
They believe Bill O'Reilly is a populist.
They listen to Celine Dion.
Posted by: joel dan walls | Oct 10, 2008 12:18:50 PM
Hey meg, that system has been tried. It's called FEUDALISM.
Posted by: joel dan walls | Oct 10, 2008 12:21:17 PM
Yo Mark Twain, did you know that bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley has been promoting Obama in Appalachia?
Posted by: RW | Oct 10, 2008 12:33:35 PM
Folks, Meg is clearly some guy sitting in his bedroom salting the site with ridiculous positions.
Ignore her. Him. Erum...
Unless you are enjoying displaying your own mastery of hx, philosophy etc... that last comment was just too pat on "Meg"'s part to be authentic.
Posted by: Charlie Burr | Oct 10, 2008 12:36:50 PM
1) I suppose we could offer a simple test to voters: if you pass it, you should vote; if not, you should stay home. Or we could do it based on education level: if you've graduated from high school or college, you should vote; if not, you should stay home. Perhaps we could just use proxies for informed-ness: if you're a landowner, or if you've been a citizen for more than a couple generations, then you should vote; otherwise, we should leave it to the wiser people. On the other hand, perhaps it's better for us to abide by the central Constitutional principle that democracy works better when more people do it.
To preemptively add some context for future opp researchers here: Jefferson was being ironic and in fact, has been one of the leading organizers in the state to bring more people -- young and old -- into our democratic process.
Posted by: Mark Twain | Oct 10, 2008 1:23:57 PM
joel - Thank you; no, I wasn't aware of this.
But Bluegrass wouldn't fit under my category of "country;" it's too sophisticated and it has the word "grass" in it.
Bluegrass musicians should continue to have the franchise.
Posted by: Jefferson Smith | Oct 10, 2008 1:40:52 PM
I at first thought Meg's comment was ironic, but maybe not. It sounds like something I might say: "Giving extra votes for people with extra money thing would be cool. That way people could inherit added political power more directly." (That was ironic. I believe exactly the opposite of that.)
(In addition, Charlie is correct about the irony in my previous post as well. Indeed, I wrote the voting limitations that I believe the Supreme Court has already deemed to be unconstitutional limitations to our fundamental right to vote, which we should all hold pretty sacrosanct.)
The Brent Barton suggestion on blogging is "never blog; then you never can have something taken out of context or risk writing something stupid." Perhaps an alternative plan is "have so much idiocy in print that the sheer volume will daunt anyone trying to criticize slices of it."
Posted by: Gary Weiss | Oct 10, 2008 2:39:36 PM
Pieces like Stossel's are proof that Americans get the leaders they deserve.
Posted by: meg | Oct 10, 2008 3:12:12 PM
"Giving extra votes for people with extra money "
Extra money was that a quote?
"people that pay more taxes (the so-called evil-rich)"
See a difference? when is enough.
Posted by: RW | Oct 10, 2008 3:23:06 PM
I think the painful thing we have to come to terms with is that we need to AT LEAST have a passionate and ENGAGED youth-electorate. OK, so we could end up with a ruler we really don't want or need.... but over time these youth will encounter life, life's chances (socioanthropological term related to evolutionary/population processes, btw), and consequences. AND, if not pandered to forever OR dismissed as youthful passionates often are... they WILL evolve into "better" voters, whatever that means.
I am in dialog with my son and his friends about the existential basis to vote - not een for outcomes, and also outside of what you are told by the pols and politicos. My interest is in planting these concepts for the ones who WILL feel betrayed by Obama in the years coming soon, so that they can reason their way through this cloud, this fog of True Believer Heat that is driving them to the polls for their first experience.
I myself am tussling with my jaded dismissiveness as regards their motivations, manipulability.
This is an important discussion. We need to address our own anti-youth bias underneath our veneer of doughty Progressivist orthodoxies.
And, yes, I AM speaking of more than just myself here.
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 10, 2008 3:44:45 PM
ad hominem truth: John Stossel is a craven hunk of excrement. Once he was a crusading environmental reporter [he was probably just as craven in that iteration.] Then he realized the advantage of shilling for the corporate polluters and others was seek to privatize profits as they socialize costs.
All these young folks voting is what Chomsky calls [quoting the real elites of the Trilateral Commission] "an excess of democracy."
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 10, 2008 3:49:22 PM
meg is a classic case - small minded, elitist, ignorant of the currents of history and governance, and Calvinist. In a word, Republican.
Posted by: Dena | Oct 10, 2008 3:50:01 PM
As Jefferson and others have pointed out, clearly "low information" voters are not merely the younger voting public.
Case in point : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fbpZXivv-M
AND here :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjxzmaXAg9E
Meg, I appreciate your candor. Just wondering if you are really hearing yourself ? Kinda sounds like a mom I know who asked me "Shouldn't the parents who volunteer the most time at school and donate the most money get preferential treatment from the principal?"
Posted by: RW | Oct 10, 2008 4:36:28 PM
... and, Thomas, nothing more unsafe than a self-professed Recovering Calvinist. Lemme tell ya. Zowie. Better this open disdain as evinced by The Meg than other subverts to which I've been subjected too late awares!
Posted by: rw | Oct 10, 2008 4:40:21 PM
... as to Stossels' excremental status: at least he's a lookable hunka pooh.
:)
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 10, 2008 4:54:01 PM
Even worse: a secular Calvinist!
Posted by: RW | Oct 10, 2008 4:55:55 PM
The secularity protects the Calvinist from acknowledging it's all just Bad Religion.
Not really rationality.
Toxic stuff.
And our reactions to/against it? Also toxic.
Posted by: Jenni Simonis | Oct 10, 2008 6:11:39 PM
Maybe instead the piece should have focused on it being our civic duty to do everything we can to make sure people are informed?
Maybe actually put civics back in our schools? Change the way we teach history to ensure students learn everything they should. We barely made it to WWII, and I was in honors/AP classes - which means we got further than the non-advanced classes. I'm pretty sure some important stuff happened in WWII and beyond.
Maybe our news organizations should see it as their civic duty to educate and inform the population. That is their job, after all. It's a big reason why I left journalism - it wasn't about that any more.
The news spends a ton of time covering things like what your pastor said, who was on a board with who, etc. That time could instead have been spent on informing the voting public on something that truly matters.
But it's a lot easier to blame people for not knowing what they should than it is to take responsibility for not doing your job.
Posted by: Kristin | Oct 10, 2008 7:18:34 PM
I think there are all sorts of variations on "informed."
Perhaps a young, working single mother doesn't know how many Justices there are on the Supreme Court but she knows damn well that she can't afford health insurance for her kid.
A young college student may or may not know what was on the front page of the New York Times today, but he knows that he can't get a student loan now that Bush and co. have toasted the economy. And that one of his only options in getting an education is joining the military.
Perhaps a young couple can't name all 100 Senators, but they do know that they can't get a mortgage that they can afford.
Or maybe a young voter doesn't know the historical origins and current applications of the National Environmental Protection Act (or some such environmental legislation), but she knows that she should try to bike more.
There's informed and then there's informed.
Posted by: RW | Oct 10, 2008 7:32:12 PM
Kristin, thank you. Sometimes I feel tired of speaking this piece and the typical lack of engagement or call and response. Perhaps if I were to pretend I was speaking in reference to some great "Other" for whom I progressively care.... :)... not being bitchy here, strictly, but I appreciate you breaking out of the narrow categories of value we do indulge here.
And Jenni speaks to a huge frustration I had as a High School student who wanted and needed more!
Posted by: Chris Lowe | Oct 10, 2008 8:02:36 PM
All Democrats should be excluded because they don't know enough to know why the Republicans are right. All Republicans should be excluded because they don't know enough to know what the Democrats are right. All small party registrants and voters should be excluded because of insufficient realism. All independents and NAVs should be excluded because they're too indecisive, don't know enough to choose a party or are too lazy.
Anyone with imaginable hormonal imbalance issues should be excluded from the vote: men with excessive or deficient testosterone (i.e. more than 1% either way from the level of the Dalai Lama) and/or is on viagra or related medications, menstruating women in the weeks before, during or after their menstrual periods, and anyone who drinks milk not certified bovine growth hormone free or who eats fruits or vegetables sprayed with pesticides. So should who engages in extreme sports, watches horror movies, hunts moose & squirrel, rides roller coasters or otherwise engages in activities causing adrenalin floods should be excluded.
Anyone with excessive or deficient skin melanin should be excluded -- warm brown voters only.
People who only speak English should be excluded because they don't know enough to make judgments about an interdependent world. People who speak a foreign language other than English should be excluded due their excessive risk of influence by UnAmerican values.
Due to recent studies showing that handling golf balls causes loss of brain cells, golfers should be excluded. Likewise all wearers of makeup used for taking part in television broadcasts.
No users of cell phones, which may cause increased risk of brain cancer which is the next thing to dementia.
No one who has crashed a jet plane more than three times (excluding being shot down).
All property holders should be excluded due to conflicts of interest that prevent them from understanding the common good.
No one who doesn't have children in kindergarten or younger should be allowed to vote because they don't really have sufficient motivation to care. No one who has children in kindergarten or younger should be allowed to vote because they don't have the capacity to focus long enough to understand the issues.
Anyone with a post-graduate degree should be excluded as a money-grubber elitist, and egg-head elitist or both. Anyone with a college degree should be excluded because they partied too much. Anyone who didn't finish college should be excluded because they aren't ambitious enough. Anyone with a high school diploma, g.e.d., or who never finished high school should be excluded because they don't know enough.
John Stossell should be excluded merely for existing.
Posted by: clarion librarian | Oct 10, 2008 8:03:49 PM
"I think people that pay zero taxes (or negative taxes for that matter) should have no vote. I also believe that there should be a scale so that people that pay more taxes (the so-called evil-rich) should have more votes. Why should people that are dependent on the government get a say so of who runs it. It's similar to inmates getting to pick the prison warden."
I think people who don't know when to use the words "who" or "that" properly should not be allowed to vote.
Posted by: Chris Lowe | Oct 10, 2008 8:07:13 PM
Tom, does Chomsky really attribute "excess of democracy" to the Trilateral Commission? I'm virtually certain that it was Samuel Huntington.
Posted by: rw | Oct 10, 2008 8:11:20 PM
Chris: you silly man.
Also - did not mean for my remarks to come off as condescending! Just am glad someone else said some of the things that are so often on my mind - the disenfrahchisement of my relatives all over Indian Country has me sadly concerned, and I can't get a fix on whether anyone is engaged in making sure they are not lied to, cheated, defeated this year. It's nice to hear my concerns and one part of my knowledge base addressed by another as their own.
Posted by: Chris Lowe | Oct 10, 2008 8:12:27 PM
P.S. Oh, and I forgot the need to exclude anyone who refers to anyONE as "they", since they can't speak or write right, to "he or she" as "they", who uses "more" when there's a good -er word (more hungry rather than hungrier) or who uses "there's" in situations that call for "there are." Also anyone who has ever made a typo in a blog post or e-mail, or who has sent a text message of any kind using a telephone.
Posted by: rebecca | Oct 10, 2008 8:45:56 PM
... thus beginneth the Republic of Critchifer!
Lo: all hail the Mighty Critchy, he who sanctifies the un-Voting.
Posted by: RW | Oct 10, 2008 8:47:56 PM
Christopher, here is a link to Chomsky - excess et. al.
http://www.chomsky.info/books/priorities01.htm
Posted by: Dena | Oct 10, 2008 9:17:29 PM
Civics and voter education is truly a nonpartisan issue and the responsibility for it rests on all of our shoulders. It is part and parcel of an intellectual malaise that has permeated throughout our popular culture.Bill Maher was spot on when he surmised that the real reason Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot" was NOT because of his silly haircuts but because he READ. And there is a growing part of the American public that thinks reading and learning is for sissies. How the hell do you think we got to Sarah Palin ?!?! I know a sitting city council member who doesn't believe that libraries are necessary.
Many schools in the past, mostly urban,parochial used to mandate "Civics" as its own discipline. In today's NCLB/AYP world, there is virtually no attention to the subject. It is not measured by standardized tests, so it is not embedded in the curriculum. Students of schools that have high poverty rates are doubly injured due to an all consuming push to increase test scores. Students at more affluent schools have the additonal benefits of related electives and enrichment opportunities; i.e leadership classes, student council, debate and speech teams, Classroom Law Project, Model UN, Mock Convention, etc... Those opportunities are either non existent or very limited at middle schools/high schools with a high SES. Are there teachers who make efforts in that regard ? You bet! We write letters to the editor. We research issues. We hold debates. This week, we practiced how to fill out (voided of course) voter registration forms and studied what is required to be eligible to vote. Hopefully some of them will help the adults in their lives fill them out before October 14th. None of this requires any partisan leanings.
Parents have to do their part too. Just like I make sure my kids eat enough vegetables.You talk to your kids. You involve them in civics and political discussions and activities. You turn off the effen tv and read a book. Or at least make them watch something informative. Because its good for them and because you said so, goshdarnit. These were great gifts my very Republican and not "highly educated" parents gave to me.
Organizations like Bus Project are fantastic examples of voter engagement and education. My warm fuzzy feeling from last Saturday's Bus Trip was seeing a couple kids from my school, one of the poorest middle schools in the state, with their mom!It filled me with great hope and I know it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for a couple of good folks from Bus Project going to their school and talking with them.
David Brooks, in an interview with The Atlantic, called Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party" and representative of an anti-intellectualism within the party".I would argue that the Democrats clearly have some of that to.
Wow. I gotta lay off the coffee.
Posted by: Jenni Simonis | Oct 10, 2008 9:24:25 PM
Parents have to do their part too.
I definitely agree with that. I certainly do everything I can with Abby. We've had multiple discussions where I've tried to explain to her how things work - city council, county commission, state legislature, etc. She's only 6 and therefore doesn't understand everything, but I try to give it to her in terms she understands.
She loves visiting City Hall. A while back we had the opportunity to visit Portland City Hall for a meeting in Commissioner Fish's office. She was so tickled to be visiting the city hall for another city. Abby also couldn't get over how different Portland City Hall was from Gresham City Hall.
I also talk to her about voting - especially when the ballots arrive.
I've also talked to her about Obama and why it's important he be elected. One of the things that has stuck with her the most is that Obama is just like her - he comes from parents who are from different races - and one is from another country. It's something that has made her feel that anything is possible.
Posted by: Chris Lowe | Oct 10, 2008 9:39:23 PM
Thanks Rebecca. It seems that Huntington was "the American author" among three of the Trilateral Commission report from which the phrase comes, so there's no actual contradiction between Tom's correct citation and my memory, just an incompleteness of my memory about context.
Posted by: Tom Civiletti | Oct 10, 2008 10:20:03 PM
I feel privileged to waste time blogging with folks who know not only political and economic history, but pronouns and conjunctions as well.
Note: The presence of any individual above does not imply an endorsement by BlueOregon. The selection of faces shown is done by Facebook. Visit BlueOregon on Facebook.
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Posted by: Brent | Oct 10, 2008 10:36:22 AM
Probably we should just restrict the vote to the rich white leisure class- by Stossel's logic, they're the only ones with enough time and education to consider how political decisions affect their lives.