Elections and Asymmetrical Information

In thinking about the recent presidential election it occurred to me that we on the Right have a problem that comes about because of  asymmetrical information.  A wonderful example of this is given by Sasha Volokh, Assistant Professor, Emory Law School, who gave a lecture on law and economics titled Is Law and Economics a Right-Wing Plot?  Bear with me while I digress momentarily. 

I was disappointed with the results of the 2012 election, but and also surprised.  I thought that the election would be a referendum on Obama.  The combination of very high unemployment, horrendous deficits and the worst economic “recovery” in American history would doom the President’s chance for a second term.

I was wrong.

The factor that carried the day was what many refer to as the “low information voter.”  That’s the person who gets his or her information from the mainstream media, TV entertainment shows and movies.  They are submerged in a culture that is overwhelmingly Liberal and doesn’t so much as make arguments as establish a mood.  The operative word in this culture is “feel” rather than “think.”  They were persuaded that whatever Obama's faults, Romney was worse.  And they were persuaded because of asymmetric information.  In Shasha Vokokh's words, they did not know what they were buying. 

Some on my side of the political spectrum, influential figures such as GlennReynolds have suggested that those who bankrolled the Romney campaign should instead have bought some women’s magazines.  These magazines were telling women who read them that Republicans were going to outlaw contraceptives, as part of their “war on women.”  The whole concept of any party declaring a war on women was so bizarre that I was convinced that it would be ineffective.  But it wasn’t because it was part of a broader tidal wave of emotion that told the impressionable that Obama was “cool” and that unless you wanted to be “uncool” you had to support him.  That may be high school level psychological manipulation but it worked well enough with many impressionable women.  

Cathy Seipp reviewed a book in 2004 that addressed the issue of the Liberal views promoted by the women who publish the women’s magazines. 

Spin Sisters is a well-researched polemic that argues the media is run by an ossified elite who came of age in the '60s and '70s and have never questioned their formative beliefs: that bigger, better government is the answer to many personal problems. 

As an example, here’s Cosmopolitan’s analysis of Obama vs. Romney.  If this is what you know of Obama and Romney, and were on the fence, who would you vote for?

Glenn Reynolds also believes that political money would also be well spent on creating web sites that are the electronic versions of Cosmo or Good Housekeeping.  That could also work.  But I want to dissent from my brethren on this issue somewhat.  Too much attention is being paid to middle class women in this discussion.  Yes, they are important and we need every vote we can get, but I think that this overlooks the genuine low information voters that turned out in droves for Obama. 

 

I'm thinking of the ones who live in the precincts that voted 100% for Obama.   Assuming that there was no voter fraud, these are the real, hard core low information voters.  They are the ones with ultra-high unemployment rates. They live in homes that are not broken because they were never created; where daddy, if he’s around at all is really an “uncle.”  They are provided with “education” whose primary purpose is not to educate but to provide jobs to members of teachers unions.  They are warehoused in “projects” where police enter only to count the bodies.  They are assigned to a life of poverty by a party that has one use for them … as human ballots.   

Because they leave school as virtual illiterates (47% of Detroiters are functionally illiterate), they don’t read Cosmo and don’t surf the net.  They do watch TV, talk on cell phones and go to movies.  They also “hang out.”  Lest I be thought as painting too bleak and monochromatic a picture, it isn’t that black and white.  It’s worth reading Code of the Street Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City to see that there are people who can be reached.  But that reaching has to be done on a very basic level; the picture book level, the TV show level. 

 

If Sheldon Adelson really wants to make a difference he will send someone to Philadelphia and the Bronx and Los Angeles.  He will find out what’s on the news-stands and what’s playing on TVs in the inner cities.  And he’ll buy a tabloid, or a comic book publisher or a half hour block or TV time on BET.  And then he will NOT put on a version of Firing Line, or National Review.  What he will do is hire people who can be as basic, as crude, as hip as Snoop Dog and start to make some of the locals politicians and community “leaders” uncool.  If “pimping’s” cool, make pimps uncool.  If drug dealing’s cool make the dealers uncool.  Expose the dirty dealing that’s done at the expense of the people in the projects while the leaders are riding in fancy cars with fancy women while stealing; not from “the man” but from the “brothers and sisters.”  Ridicule; ridicule relentlessly.  As we have seen, there’s no defense. 

Then move up the food chain.  Obama the Mac Daddy may be cool, but Obama the reincarnation of Louis XVI and Michelle as Marie Antoinette is not cool.  Wearing low riding pants may be cool, but wearing mom-jeans is not cool.  Saying you’re not going to take any shit from anyone’s cool.  Saying it’s not my fault is not cool. 

 

One of the problems that the Right has had is that we have demanded that people hear us at our level.  They don’t.    They hear at their level.  And if we want to be heard and have our views respected, we have to learn to communicate in ways that are understood.  May be we should learn Ebonics rather than making fun of it.