According to the Washington Post, about 100 million people who could've voted in the US elections last week didn't.
According to a study by the United States Election Project, about 232 million people could've voted, and about 132 million did.
Politico claimed back in October that the US had passed the 200 million mark in registered voters. If that's accurate and the Election Project numbers are accurate, it means that about 68 million Americans were registered to vote last week and didn't, and about 32 million more could have registered but didn't.
It seems to me that we Democrats have some room for improvement when it comes to getting our campaign messages across. Very often in the run-up to the election I encountered the claim that Hillary and Donald are pretty much the same. Obviously, the differences between them are huge, and Democrats described these differences accurately and eloquently -- but apparently millions of people who despise Trump and didn't vote for him either never heard us, or heard us and didn't believe us. They despise Hillary too.
How do we improve at getting information across? How do we convince people that leading Democrats are honest, and that we did not, in fact, just nominate history's greatest monster for President?
I don't know. But it's something that we should be thinking about very seriously. How to get through.
I would've thought that a great majority of Americans are by now very concerned about climate change. If that were true, then it would have been an example of American voters not realizing that one Presidential candidate -- Hillary -- shared their concern and had all sorts of plans to deal with the issue, while the other candidate -- Donald -- is completely out to lunch on the topic. However, this web page from the Pew Research Center seems to indicate that barely a majority of Americans are greatly concerned about climate change. Only 68% of Democrats surveyed, and 20% of Republicans, agreed with the statement "global climate change is a very serious problem." Okay, so there's obviously a very serious weakness when it comes to basic scientific education in the US -- a catastrophic weakness among Republicans, but a very serious weakness among Democrats as well. We need to get people to understand science better.
The incoming Republican administration is not going to be very helpful with education. Fox and Breitbart and the "History Channel" are not going to be helpful at all. I'm sorry, I wish I were just brimming with helpful suggestions about how to turn this all around. The only hopeful thing I can say is that I see numerous surveys suggesting that younger voters vote Democratic more often, are well-educated on climate change more often, are more in favor of equal rights for women and ethnic minorities and LGBT's -- they're just more Democratic. That gives me hope that this is all turning around. Just not as quickly as we'd like.
Having a distinguished professor and pre-eminent intellectual such as Elizabeth Warren in the Oval Office would be tremendously helpful. Warren 2020!
Showing posts with label education in the us. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education in the us. Show all posts
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Monday, November 7, 2016
How To Prevent Nominees Like Trump
How can the US best strive to insure that an absolute Bozo and sociopath like Donald Trump is never, ever again nominated for the highest office in the land?
1. Education. Donald Trump himself said, into a live mic before a crowd of cheering morons at one of his rallies: "I love the poorly educated." Makes sense: he's also been going around saying things in public such as that global warming is a hoax created by the Chinese in order to hurt American business. A well-educated public simply isn't going to elect anyone who says things like that, or like many of the other things Trump says. The Mexican wall? Well-educated people aren't buying that one. Trump's claim that Mexico would pay for it? They're buying that one even less. Ladies and gentlemen -- I implore you!
2. Education.
3. The US must invest much, much more in education.
3a. Education includes art, music, and, yes, also gym.
5. Um zukuenftig einem Disaster wie Trump als Praesidentschaft-Kandidat vorzukommen, muessen die Vereinigten Staaten sehr viel mehr in Bildung investieren.
6. Education.
7. Wee shud spen mutch more ahn skoolz an buk lernin. Cuz havin sumbuddy lahk Trump fur ah Prezzidenchuhl kandidait? Thass jest puhthetik!
8. Education.
9. Education.
How many different ways can I say it? But the point is to keep saying it the same way.
10. Education. The US needs much, much more of it.
10a. And it should all be free like it is in some other countries. Kindergarten to grad school. Free.
10b. Even in Wyoming? No, ESPECIALLY in Wyoming!
1. Education. Donald Trump himself said, into a live mic before a crowd of cheering morons at one of his rallies: "I love the poorly educated." Makes sense: he's also been going around saying things in public such as that global warming is a hoax created by the Chinese in order to hurt American business. A well-educated public simply isn't going to elect anyone who says things like that, or like many of the other things Trump says. The Mexican wall? Well-educated people aren't buying that one. Trump's claim that Mexico would pay for it? They're buying that one even less. Ladies and gentlemen -- I implore you!
2. Education.
3. The US must invest much, much more in education.
3a. Education includes art, music, and, yes, also gym.
4. EDUCATION!!!!!!
5. Um zukuenftig einem Disaster wie Trump als Praesidentschaft-Kandidat vorzukommen, muessen die Vereinigten Staaten sehr viel mehr in Bildung investieren.
6. Education.
7. Wee shud spen mutch more ahn skoolz an buk lernin. Cuz havin sumbuddy lahk Trump fur ah Prezzidenchuhl kandidait? Thass jest puhthetik!
8. Education.
9. Education.
How many different ways can I say it? But the point is to keep saying it the same way.
10. Education. The US needs much, much more of it.
10a. And it should all be free like it is in some other countries. Kindergarten to grad school. Free.
10b. Even in Wyoming? No, ESPECIALLY in Wyoming!
Monday, September 16, 2013
I Am Clicheoclast, Hear Me Roar
LISA: You shouldn't make generalizations about people who live in places you've never been.
BART: Yeah, Dad. That's what they do in Russia. [QUOTE NOT GUARANTEED EXACT, BUT THAT'S THE GIST OF IT]
Ah, if only the problem were limited to places people have never been. A story has hit concerning 2 Russians in their 20's arguing about Kant, an argument which escalated from words to fists to gunfire.
Predictably, and sadly, some people are responding to the story with cliches, such as: "This would never happen in the US, because you'd have to search far and wide before finding 2 Americans in their 20's who know who Kant is."
Not if you searched in university philosophy departments, that much is certain.
But of course you wouldn't have to resort to going to the nearest university.
It's typical -- sadly typical -- that such remarks are routinely made in the midst of Americans who are not asking questions such as, "Who is Kant?" because they already know who Kant is, but that doesn't stop the people who are delivering the cliches from considering themselves to be wise, nor does it stop many many people -- Americans, mostly -- from chiming in and agreeing, and somehow failing to see, although it's hard to see how anything could be much clearer, that they themselves are a refutation of the cliches with which they are agreeing.
Sadly typical as well is how few people seem to grasp that this particular cliche about Americans never having heard of Kant is nonsense. So far I've seen just one person challenge it. Me.
This is a particularly striking example of the power of cliches to blind people and switch their brains off.
PS: There may be one way in which Russians actually have an advantage over Americans when it comes to studying Kant, a significant advantage: it may be that more Russians than Americans have read Kant untranslated. That's just a guess on my part, but it rests partly on the sad fact that the cliche about proud smug American monoligualism is not entirely unfounded, and partly on the rather large physical presence of German scholars in Russia going back to before Kant's time, and a correspondingly large knowledge of the German language among Russian academics. And, well, #3: Karl Marx.
BART: Yeah, Dad. That's what they do in Russia. [QUOTE NOT GUARANTEED EXACT, BUT THAT'S THE GIST OF IT]
Ah, if only the problem were limited to places people have never been. A story has hit concerning 2 Russians in their 20's arguing about Kant, an argument which escalated from words to fists to gunfire.
Predictably, and sadly, some people are responding to the story with cliches, such as: "This would never happen in the US, because you'd have to search far and wide before finding 2 Americans in their 20's who know who Kant is."
Not if you searched in university philosophy departments, that much is certain.
But of course you wouldn't have to resort to going to the nearest university.
It's typical -- sadly typical -- that such remarks are routinely made in the midst of Americans who are not asking questions such as, "Who is Kant?" because they already know who Kant is, but that doesn't stop the people who are delivering the cliches from considering themselves to be wise, nor does it stop many many people -- Americans, mostly -- from chiming in and agreeing, and somehow failing to see, although it's hard to see how anything could be much clearer, that they themselves are a refutation of the cliches with which they are agreeing.
Sadly typical as well is how few people seem to grasp that this particular cliche about Americans never having heard of Kant is nonsense. So far I've seen just one person challenge it. Me.
This is a particularly striking example of the power of cliches to blind people and switch their brains off.
PS: There may be one way in which Russians actually have an advantage over Americans when it comes to studying Kant, a significant advantage: it may be that more Russians than Americans have read Kant untranslated. That's just a guess on my part, but it rests partly on the sad fact that the cliche about proud smug American monoligualism is not entirely unfounded, and partly on the rather large physical presence of German scholars in Russia going back to before Kant's time, and a correspondingly large knowledge of the German language among Russian academics. And, well, #3: Karl Marx.
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