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Public trust in politicians and the government is near all-time lows: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/ htt

Public trust in politicians and the government is near all-time lows: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust... People are supporting politicians because there is literally nothing else to do but not vote. Also, personally, I expect a politician to lie while holding a journalist to a higher standard. We need proper journalism to hold the government accountable.

righthand 2y ago
We do have that but there is strong bias towards not trusting journalism. Everything in the US is capital based and no one wants to pay for journalism. So journalism relies on ad-tactics to get eyeballs looking at their stuff. This in turn causes low trust because if one type of article is manipulative then the other types must be right? If people weren’t so anti-capitalism then the journalism would have incentive to be less manipulative across the board. Furthermore the politicians want manipulative journalism, there is no incentive on either side to do the right thing. If there was we wouldn’t have the political candidates we do today. Instead we invest in the weakness because be uneducated means you don’t actually have to understand just vote emotionally.
- quickslowdown 2y ago
  > If people weren’t so anti-capitalism then the journalism would have incentive to be less manipulative across the board I'm struggling to put into words the thoughts this sentence triggered. We're on HN, not reddit, so I'm going to assume good faith. What reasons over the past 30-50 years have capitalists given the population to root for them? When your business model is to fuck over everyone in your path in a race to the bottom for the gain of a select few at the top, why would anyone expect anything else from the people capitalism stomps all over?
  - righthand 2y ago
    Because regardless of how hard you get stomped, the system is still capitalism. There’s no need to take revenge on journalism which could work well. The average American maintains finances by putting their money in a bank where it rots with inflation, of course they get stomped by capitalism.

righthand 2y ago

We do have that but there is strong bias towards not trusting journalism. Everything in the US is capital based and no one wants to pay for journalism. So journalism relies on ad-tactics to get eyeballs looking at their stuff. This in turn causes low trust because if one type of article is manipulative then the other types must be right? If people weren’t so anti-capitalism then the journalism would have incentive to be less manipulative across the board. Furthermore the politicians want manipulative journalism, there is no incentive on either side to do the right thing. If there was we wouldn’t have the political candidates we do today. Instead we invest in the weakness because be uneducated means you don’t actually have to understand just vote emotionally.

quickslowdown 2y ago
> If people weren’t so anti-capitalism then the journalism would have incentive to be less manipulative across the board I'm struggling to put into words the thoughts this sentence triggered. We're on HN, not reddit, so I'm going to assume good faith. What reasons over the past 30-50 years have capitalists given the population to root for them? When your business model is to fuck over everyone in your path in a race to the bottom for the gain of a select few at the top, why would anyone expect anything else from the people capitalism stomps all over?
- righthand 2y ago
  Because regardless of how hard you get stomped, the system is still capitalism. There’s no need to take revenge on journalism which could work well. The average American maintains finances by putting their money in a bank where it rots with inflation, of course they get stomped by capitalism.