Death panels and democracy
Recent polling shows that nearly half of Americans believe in the “death panel” lie. The national misinformation campaign on health care reform should really be considered a success given these poll numbers. (50% also believed that the proposed health care reform would use government money to finance abortions!). It is also notoriously difficult to correct public opinion once it has been formed. Getting right to the point — given that outright lying about the facts of proposed legislation to the public is effective, is this sort of behavior endemic to democracy?
The 24 hour news cycle likely does not help, as incentives point to the need to fill airtime with talking points from both sides. Further, for outlets like CNN that are vested in appearing balanced, there is apparently a compulsion to show both sides of a story, even if one side is a lie. However, there is certainly an air of “it was better in my day” about blaming the current media.
I’ll take the stand that these sorts of political lies are likely to take hold due to two factors. The first is confirmation bias — for example, well over half of self-identified Republicans believed the death panel farce. Of course, the good news there is that the recipients of confirmation would likely have opposed health care reform to begin with, doing little to meaningfully change the political balance.
I’m afraid the second reason might be simple gullibility.
Can anyone make a compelling arguement for how political misinformation in a democracy can be controlled, or is it a permanant feature?
-John
Related posts:
- Singer on health care rationing
- Evaluating democracy promotion
- Give me health care, or give me death
- Health care and small government
- Healthcare reform raises tough moral questions
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