Eh, No One Gives That Much Of A Shit

The problem of immediacy and what impacts you directly.

You look at something like The Mueller Report. It feels like media coverage of that deal was roadblocked for maybe two years. Every night, it seems like every show on cable had to mention it once or twice. Now, I realize cable news is a very specific thing and designed to inflame in many ways, but even the Democrats apparently started realizing over time that fewer and fewer people cared about the Mueller Report compared to, say, “kitchen-table issues.”

During the time all that was happening with the report, I probably had 20–30 conversations at bars, at parties, at networking events, etc. where some political thing came up. I’d say about half the time, no one knew what the Mueller Report was, and 5–6 of the people didn’t even know who Mueller was. In the same time frame, I met a female about 29 who didn’t know who Joe Biden was, even though he would have been Vice President of her country for most of her 20s.

Now, am I about to make a point about people being uninformed? I could. I don’t really want to do this in the context of politics, even though we have research about how uninformed (at least) the American electorate has become, and that lack of information is quite likely harmful to democracy.

I think it’s a bigger issue, though. I think it’s less about “not knowing” and more about “not caring.” The easiest political stat would be turnout. Overall voter turnout in 2016 was about 61 percent, for example. That’s not bad, but it’s still a D-Minus on a test in school and still leaves 4 in 10 Americans who could vote on the sidelines.

Now, in politics I think this all makes sense. Politicians have been spewing bullshit for so long that many people probably think none of it matters, and another huge chunk can’t easily get to a poll, or — to be honest — their vote is probably suppressed in some way. So we have a lot of issues, for sure. Now let’s abandon politics.

What about work?