Part 1
When the dust settles, I expect the people who assess elections will tell us disinformation was key in 2024. It wasn’t the economy, it was the disinformation about the economy. That disinformation successfully led voters across the country to believe they were worse off, despite October
reporting in The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere that we have the best economy in the world, a remarkable recovery from Covid.
There was Trump’s persistent lying. There were the highly successful disinformation campaigns by hostile foreign entities. There were billionaire newspaper owners who withheld endorsements the editorial boards wanted to give to Harris, endorsements that would have focused on the strength of her economic policies and the importance of democracy issues. There was Elon Musk, who bought Twitter and converted it from the public square to a mouthpiece for Trump.
There is data from a Reuters/Ipsos poll in October that shows just how damaging the information gap is. People who are in possession of truthful, accurate information voted overwhelmingly for Harris. In other words, if you believed violent crime in major American cities was at an all-time high—which is not true—you were far more likely to vote Republican. Voters who knew that inflation had declined over the last year and was close to historic averages were +53 Democratic votes. Perhaps most disturbingly, people who did not have truthful information about undocumented people crossing the southern border were more likely to vote Republican.
When the dust settles, I expect the people who assess elections will tell us disinformation was key in 2024.
joycevance.substack.com
