This is brilliant and I think explains 100% of why "the border crisis" has risen to the top of voter concerns: heaps of rightwing misinformation combining with faulty reasoning induced by the regular media not telling people what our immigration policy actually is
The media's intense preference for novelty means that even policy-focused coverage often omits information about current policy. For example, I coded 400 news articles about Medicare and immigration policy. 41% contained zero pieces of information about existing policies in those areas.
I think that's true, but I was also speaking to a relative over the holidays who's in his 70s and definitely Dem-aligned who had shockingly rightwing takes on immigration. It's not just lack of information, people also just have very bad instincts in this area.
Well that's exactly the point, people's default reasoning is "they should come here legally" or other nonsense because they don't get news about how fucking impossible that is
Exactly, “legal immigration” when Ellis Island was open and “legal immigration” now are light years apart from each other.
Maybe not enough people have seen “The Godfather, Part II”?
It has me thinking that the byzantine policy that almost no one understands and is not part of common public knowledge either intentionally or unintentionally creates a smokescreen for bad actors to manipulate public sentiment.
I wonder how much misinfo is reporting laziness, too. As in, it's easier to write a story just quoting someone with influence than it is to actually fact check. And if people complain, well "I was reporting on the person's comments, not on the topic itself"
Tbf, heaps of right wing misinformation combining with faulty reasoning induced by the regular media not telling people what our policy is can explain most issues in this country.
