And wouldn’t you think that most single mothers would have heard of Ryan, who after all has been an architect or loud supporter of every recent proposal to cut food stamps and medical aid to children.
And
employees who currently get tax-free health care benefits from their employer—surely
most of them have heard of Ryan, who has advocated ending that tax exemption on
income and benefits.
And
I imagine that among those 98% of Catholic women who defy the Catholic Church
and use artificial birth control, there are still many who listened when the
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that Ryan’s budget plans would
disproportionately cut programs that serve the poor and vulnerable.
I’m
guessing that the majority of people in the United States should have a reason
to dislike Ryan, who currently serves as leading spokesperson for the
right-wing’s low-tax, no-government social philosophy.
That’s
why I am so completely floored by the results of yesterday’s poll by Yahoo! on
its home page asking if Paul Ryan will boost or hurt Mitt Romney’s chances of
unseating President Obama.
As
of 3:30 pm yesterday afternoon, more than 100,000 had voted. Here’s what they
said:
- Yes, he'll boost Romney's chances: 24%
- No, he'll hurt Romney's chances: 22%
- I don't know who he is: 53%
That’s right, a majority of the people who voted in the
survey had never heard of Paul Ryan. The news is depressing, even if we assume
that people who respond to Yahoo! home page surveys are dramatically different
in their reading of the news from the general electorate. But I’m guessing that
people reading the Yahoo! home page get more news than the average person,
because Yahoo! puts news on its home page. In fact, it has plastered photos of
Ryan on its rotating box and put his name in many news headlines over the past
two years.
And yet, more people have never heard of him than have
formed an opinion about him, negative or positive.
And therein lies the biggest problem facing American
society: the complete ignorance and apathy of a large number of voters and
potential voters.
We can complain about the way that real news gets drowned
out by non-news such as celebrity news and gossip, political bloopers, features
about stuff and services to buy, sports and reductions of issues to personality
spats. After all, a Google search reveals only 3.7 million hits for “Paul Ryan
budget” and 400 million hits for Lady Gaga, who is only one of many celebrities
fueling celebrity mania. Or take Delmon Young, a semi-decent baseball player
who got crocked and issued some anti-Semitic slurs, thereby producing 5.7 million
hits in a Google search.
But we can’t just blame the news media. There are still many
stories about Ryan and most of them make the top of the news. We have only to
blame ourselves for becoming so distracted by earning bread and watching
circuses that we don’t even realize how much into the muck of ignorance we have
slipped.