I was reading a Bloomberg article, titled "Poll: Americans Don't Know Economy Expanded With Tax Cuts". The crux of the article is that the public's perception of the economy is at odds with reality. In particular, the public has a much dimmer view of what has been accomplished during the Obama administration than the facts justify. But what really caught my eye was one conclusion reached by the president of the polling firm which conducted the study.
"The public view of the economy is at odds with the facts, and the blame has to go to the Democrats," said J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based firm that conducted the nationwide survey. "It does not matter much if you make change, if you do not communicate change."
The Democrats may not be great communicators, but that is a very small part of the story which explains the public's misperceptions of not only the economy, but all the accomplishments of the Democratic party. In fact, all you need to do is read the comments which are attached to this article to begin to understand some of the problems associated with trying to communicate any political message effectively. Here we have an article which states some facts about the economy, but if you read many of the comments, you might conclude the authors of the article are far worse communicators than the Democrats.
What is ignored in Selzer's comment, about the shortcomings of Democrats, is the role of the media in the public's misperceptions. Almost all of what the public understands about the achievements of the current administration is what they learn through the prism of the media. Your own circumstances obviously color your perceptions, but an understanding of the entire nation's economy requires input from other sources. And for almost everyone, those other sources are media outlets. And any failure of the American public to have a realistic understanding of the economy, or any other aspect of our current environment that is affected by politics, is above all a failure of the media.
Of course the advantage that the media has is that it suffers no consequences when it fails to effectively communicate reality. In fact much of the media seems purposefully intent on perpetuating distortions. Is it any real wonder that the public's perceptions are inaccurate? What is unremarkable is, even in such an article, the media has made sure that it is understood that the Democrats are to blame for what are mostly its own failings. And the media's need to deflect its own responsibility indicates that it has no intention of correcting its own faults anytime soon. Of course, if you look at the second part of the initial blockquote, maybe you begin to have an idea of the media's own distorted view of how important what it does, versus what others do, is.
"It does not matter much if you make change, if you do not communicate change."