All the People Can't Be All Right All the Time

New at Reason: Are 70 percent of Americans dupes? Many Iraq war opponents seemed to think so, and Brendan O'Neill cries "Smartyboots!"

Comments

[Paul]

It's an incredible coincidence, I've found, that everyone I meet who decries the gullibility or intelligence of "the public" or "people" does not include themselves. Apparently, they aren't part of the public. Since this includes about 90% of people I meet, I wonder who this remaining public *is* and where it's hiding.

[fyodor]

Re shouts of "traitor," sure pro-war people made many disparaging comments about anti-war people, the most famous of which to my mind was Instapundits infamous "objectively pro-Saddam" thingy.

But so what? Both sides of this and every debate have made unfair accusations about the other side. It doesn't demonstrate that there was an unparalleled propaganda machine that controlled the population's thoughts.

And Shady O'grady, re advertisers' desire to "brainwash" their subjects, please read my last post. And please try to think more clearly on the matter yourself.

[Phil]

The thing is, it's true -- the public IS dumb. Not unintelligent dumb, but dumb as a metaphor for "failing to think things through." The public believes rent control helps renters. It believes that smoking and marijuana should be illegal. It believes all kinds of things that make no sense to people who have thought them through.

The hilarious thing is that every group blames the stupid public only for believing the things that the group opposes. You'll never hear anti-smoking groups crediting their own propaganda for overwhelming a stupid public. Because, of course, THEY are right, while propagandists are wrong.

Phil

[Todd Fletcher]

I'd like to suggest the possibility that the American public may have been right to back the war.

This whole debate assumes that is was the wrong position, and then bends over backwards to explain how the fools were duped. Maybe it's the anti-war folks who've been duped - by their own ideology.

[Citizen]

It's an incredible coincidence, I've found, that everyone I meet who decries the gullibility or intelligence of "the public" or "people" does not include themselves. Apparently, they aren't part of the public. Since this includes about 90% of people I meet, I wonder who this remaining public *is* and where it's hiding.

Thank you, Paul! My guess is that they're all out slapping new anti-Dean Confederate flag stickers to their trucks . . .

From reading this article, I get the impression that Rampton and Stauber are not so upset about Bush's "pro-agenda" (where do they get this stuff?) as they are upset about it being effective. Specifically, more effective than their propaganda. For all of the rallies and letter writing, most of the anti-war cries boil down to stupid catchphrases: "Bush lied, they died" "No blood for oil" "Bushitler". Mindless repetition is the tool of either side. Just don't get all stuffy when you lose.

I think there is a real issue to discuss regarding the consideration that citizens give to issues of domestic or foreign policies and the leeway they grant their representatives. But it's a complaint the really ought to be laid outside of any particular agenda.

[fyodor]

Todd Fletcher,

I doubt anyone who reads this blog regularly is unaware that there are readers and posters who backed the war. But perchance that's a debate for another day?

Surely there must be some position of public policy on which you disagree with the majority of your countrymen? Explaining this is a paradox we all must face at one time or another. Personally the "people are dumb" argument doesn't do much for me. Compared to what? Martians? Baboons? Sure Phil, I'd like to think I put more thought into issues than those who disagree with me (and I'll include amongst the thoughtful when you agree with me!), but if you look hard enough you'll find thoughtful folks on every side of every issue. Hell, even Joe makes sense sometimes!! 🙂

Citizen, you're right. The whole debate on propaganda and the public's involvement should be independent from a one-sided view on any particular subject.

[Mitch]

This reminds me of the California recall; when Schwarzenegger was elected, the leftist political science professors where I work, who all day blab about how great democracy is and how much we need more political participation, began to discuss how maybe democracy doesn't work after all because ordinary people are all uneducated racists.

[ed]

Maybe Phil is right. This just in:

NEW YORK - Get ready to welcome Rudy, Richard, Tina and other favorite "Survivor" castaways for a rematch on the upcoming "Survivor: All-Stars" competition.

The chosen 18, representing all seven of CBS' past "Survivor" seasons, were announced Monday during the network's "Early Show." They face off when the hit reality-challenge series returns for its new edition after the Super Bowl telecast on Feb. 1.

[hoof in mouth]

Anyone that believes 90% of the public is stupid will always be a powerless whiner. You may have all the right answers, but your contempt for the recipients of your genius ensures you will never have power to implement them.

Bush, Rumsfeld, et al were successful in broadcasting and implementing their vision of security for Americans because a)they had worked themselves into a position of real power and b)they had a plan that involved doing something. The Left had power (Media, academia, UN), but their plan involved doing Nothing (to make America more secure). Politics and power is about doing Something (anything), and Something beats Nothing every time.

[Andrew]

I was a hawk, and old enough to remember the anti-Viet Nam war movement of the 60's. It seemed plainly obvious to me that the very existence of an "anti-War Left" was a kind of Woodstock II: a cultural artifact, and a confluence of middle-age nostalgia and college-age campus posturing.

It was made worse by the fact that Bush was president, but Tony Blair still faced much the same thing in Britain (perhaps because President Bush irredeemably tainted the war for Britain's cultural Left).

A sensible case against the war would have been couched in arguments that would have been unglamorously cautionary and prudential...but the opportunity to be ostentatiously High-Minded would have to be foresworn.

The best argument against the war would have assumed the validty of Western (specifically US) interventions SOMEWHERE in the world, and a scale of priorities. On the assumption that the willingness of the American people to sacrifice anything for world security is limited, one could argue that a potential confrontation with North Korea (and possibly Iran and Pakistan) obliges us to husband our credibility, resources and opportunities.

But that wouldn't have lent itself to street demonstrations, or sermons about the Founding Fathers and non-intervention (the staple of Libertarian anti-war posturing).

[HH]

Lemme guess... the "convincing" evidence that Atta never met with Iraqi intelligence comes from the New York Times, right?

[anon]

the average person gets 10-20 minutes a week of poltics and current affairs -- given that fact they made a rational decision to support the war based on mainstream media reporting at the time...

[Fred Gillette]

This whole mess was worth it in that it demonstrates the ubiquity of counter intuitive acts. Don't try to figure out that last sentance.

At one televised antiwar demonstration a long haired man in his late 20's was shouting "You love Saddam" to a woman who was shouting "No blood for oil." Sometime around 1975 long-hairs ceased to be laid-back hippies and become menacing red-necks.

I am told via Giancarlo Livraghi's web site that Walter B. Pitkin wrote in 1934 that 4 of 5 people are stupid. And he believed that without any regard to the sensitivities of the unwashed masses.

I'm not a menacing red-neck, just stupid.

[joe]

"I'd say if anything sidetracked the left from serious debate it was the tired "no money for oil" mantra and its accompanying attribution of the pro-war argument to sheer self-interest of those making the decisions and their friends."

I agree. The degree of idealism behind this adventure makes it a lot more frightening, in my mind, than the cynical whack-jobs carried out under Reagan and Bush I. Yet the idea that the war's proponents had to evil, rather than just wrong, alienated me from the "No blood for oil" crowd, even as I was nominally on their side.

"A sensible case against the war would have been couched in arguments that would have been unglamorously cautionary and prudential...but the opportunity to be ostentatiously High-Minded would have to be foresworn." Ding ding ding! Give the man a Kewpie doll!

Finally, I don't think it requires a view of the public as stupid to say they're too willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt on national security matters in the year following an outrage the size of 9-11.

[Sven]

Jean Bart raises a good point that O'Neill breezes over. More than 80% of Britons opposed a war without a second UN resolution and almost half opposed war even with UN support. By that measure, I'd say Blair's propaganda machine fell woefully short. At best it provided a thin layer of political protection.

The big difference between the two countries is, of course, is 9/11. Whether they saw a direct link between Iraq and the WTC attack, most Americans thought that getting rid of Saddam ? or more accurately, taking any action in the Middle East ? would make them safer. Bush's PR push may have been crude, but it was enough in that climate.

I agree with O'Neill that liberals must shoulder some of the responibility. But I have to say it would have been nigh on impossible to mount opposition where it counted ? in Congress. Democratic legislators understood at the time that most people were predisposed by a gut feeling, not because of a "coherent case" one way or the other.

You can't argue people out of feeling afraid or angry.Conversely, if people aren't thinking rationally, it's not that difficult to get them to support irrational policy.

[rst]

Surely there must be some position of public policy on which you disagree with the majority of your countrymen?

That a thing is embraced or rejected by a majority does not make it right or wrong. 200 million American idiots supporting the war is of no more or less consequence than 400 million European idiots opposing it. Supporting it because of U.S. gov't rhetoric is of no more or less consequence than opposing it because of Guardian rhetoric. People put their sources in an order of holiness and go from there. You could make a compelling moral argument for enslavement of women if you called on enough papal bulls and fatwas.

[R. C. Dean]

The problem with the argument about whether the American people were duped is generally that the opponents to the war spend their time constructing and demolishing straw arguments, and then stand around expecting everyone to be awed and convinced that they are right.

I believe that the people who support the war do so because they believe that the Middle East, as it currently operates, is an intolerable risk to the United States, and conclude that war is justified in cleaning up the Middle East because decades of diplomatic efforts have failed. Very few antiwar folks address this basic set of concerns.

Instead, when that are not out peddling conspiracy fantasies about blood for oil or Halliburton, they twisting this set of concerns out of recognition, claiming that Bush tried to justify the war with lies. Unfortunately, what they claim was said to trigger a rush to war generally wasn't actually said, or wasn't all that was said.

For example, the claim that Bush lied by saying Saddam had sought uranium in Niger simply isn't true. That's not what he said. Similarly, the claim that the Bushies said Iraq could attack the US with WMD in 45 minutes isn't true either - the 45 minutes was a reference to tactical deployment in Iraq or the Mideast.

The American people weren't duped, because most of the alleged propaganda exists only as a straw man to be kicked around on Indymedia.

[Rebecca]

Something the anti-war crowd also neglects to look at is the difficulties entailed in enforcing a treaty. What has rarely been mentioned is that Saddam signed a treaty to end the first Gulf War - and then he dragged his feet every inch of the way in abiding by the terms he agreed to. Some might say, "What would you expect?" But the way treaties work is when each side abides by what it signed on to. Twelve years of varying degrees of sanctions, ineffective inspection attempts, and the occasional random air raid were not effective in enforcing the treaty. The U.S. kept saying "Behave or else..." and then never followed through. Twelve years is long enough to determine if a country has made a good faith effort to abide by a treaty. That is one of the reasons I think some Americans supported the war - not because of the WMD or 9/11 rhetoric - no one really bought that. The other reason is, after hearing of the dreadful torture and suffering of the Iraqis from those who sought refuge in America and elsewhere, people decided they would support the war because it would free thousands of people from murderous tyranny. Sure we don't know how things will ultimately turn out - but at least now the Iraqis have a chance at improving their situation.

I think people tend to be simplistic about things, not well educated, but people also have more understanding and common sense than we would expect, in different areas.

[Jean Bart]

Did a majority of Britons support the war? Especially before it started?

[matt]

"Are 70 percent of Americans dupes?"

I'd say it's a lot more than that.....

[Ken]

With all due respect, there seems to be an incongruity to Mr. O'Neill's argument.

On the one hand, O'Neill is criticizing Rampton and Stauber for portraying Bush's campaign to win support for Gulf War II as excessively brilliant and insidious. He also takes issue with their portrayal of the American public as moronic dupes who fell for this artful propaganda hook, line and sinker.

But on the other hand, O'Neill seems to be arguing for the exact opposite scenario. According to O'Neill the American public deserves much more credit for their ability to, "judge the evidence for ourselves, to weigh politicians? claims, and to make a reasoned assessment as to whether we should support a course of action." Furthermore, according to O'Neill, Bush and Rumsfeld's efforts to convince America to go to war were no more than, "cut-and-pasted anecdotal evidence with rhetorical bluster."

I haven't read Rampton and Stauber's book, so I can't determine whether they take their argument too far and are deserving of O'Neill's criticism. However, O'Neill's counter argument doesn't adequately explain what happened. If the American people are so smart, and Bush's rhetoric so weak, why has there been such strong support for the war? Does O'Neill recall how rabidly anti-war critics were shouted down for being "traitors"? Bush's rhetoric may have been weak, but unfortunately I think O'Neill is giving the American public more credit than they deserve. I don't think the issue is as simple as blaming the public for being too stupid, but regardless of how we may feel about the capabilities of the masses, we need to remember that historically Americans have always followed the drumbeats of war.

[R. C. Dean]

Does O'Neill recall how rabidly anti-war critics were shouted down for being "traitors"?

I dunno about O'Neill, but I for one don't recall anti-war critics being shouted down, for one thing, or being called "traitors" by anyone outside the Coulterkampf fringe, for another. Links, please?

[fyodor]

Ken,

I was troubled by O'neill's apparent contradictions too until the end of his piece somewhat mitigated that reaction for me. I would say O'neill's answer to your question regarding what happened is that the left failed to form a coherent response to Bush's side, largely because they believed in the same premise of the very book he reviews, that there was such a huge propaganda machine in favor of the war that fighting back was futile and so they didn't.

But the more I think of it, the more I'm skeptical about even that. Seems the left had no shortage of energy or inclination for counter propaganda. I'd say if anything sidetracked the left from serious debate it was the tired "no money for oil" mantra and its accompanying attribution of the pro-war argument to sheer self-interest of those making the decisions and their friends. My own analysis on "what happened" is simply that Hussein was too big and convenient a bogeyman to be able to effectively argue against deposing him.

O'neill gets a close but no cigar on other accounts too. The biggest problem I can glean about this book is not that it claims value in emotional appeals, which strikes me superficially as plausible enough, although I would love to see experimental studies on the subject before deciding definitetly. No, rather it is the age old conflation of "control" with what should more properly be called "influence." Virtually everyone in the world seeks to influence others to one degree or another, and surely the more access to mass communication one has the more potential power one has to effect one's influence on others. But no matter how much of that one has, one does not "control" others' thoughts and decisions short of sticking electrodes in their brains. And this is not simply a semantic difference. Conflating "control" with "influence" creates some very real confusion in how we think about the whole issue of public influence. Hell, if someone is influencing people in ways you don't like, INFLUENCE 'EM BACK!

[Ken]

Links? How about a name: Ann Coulter.

I don't have time to dig up links from last Spring, but the matter of conservatives (not just Coulter) browbeating anyone who questioned the war was quite a pervassive issue. At least that is how I recall it.

[Shady O'Grady]

Isn't the advertising industry set up on the assumption that one can successfully "brainwash" a subject just enough to buy one product over another? Why would the public, as a whole, be any more resilient against war rhetoric than beer rhetoric?

If people are thinking as deeply as Mr. O'Neill supposes, then why do we hear poll stats like "70% of American's believe Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11"? If this oft-cited statistic is true, then these people are either recieving mis-information or forming new ideas through some kind of political form of group hysteria. The point is that 70% of America some how got it wrong, can we not assume that these 70% were not thinking deep enough?

I agree that the left should have done a better job of getting their side of the story across during the Iraq debate. This does not discount the possibility that the general public is ready, willing, and able to be duped.

[Paul]

Excellent article, which I tend to share with as many as I can.

Re: Shouts of "traitor." It was given above, "outside the Coulterkampf fringe." I think we can take it as stipulated that Coulter is batshit insane, and disregard anything she says or take it as representitive of anyone else's views or opinions. Taking Coulter as representive of "conservatives" is like taking the Unabomber as representitve of "libertarians."

[Douglas Fletcher]

"sn't the advertising industry set up on the assumption that one can successfully "brainwash" a subject just enough to buy one product over another?"

No, I think it's founded on the idea that nobody can figure out which ads actually work, so they somehow have been able to brainwash their clients into spending billions of dollars plastering the American media with wall-to-wall advertising. Seriously, if your doctor had the same success rate that Madison Avenue does, you wouldn't go anywhere near him. That goes double for your plumber.

[Ken]

Citizen said:

Isn't it possible that people critically think locking people -- moms and dads -- in cages is moral and good if those people alter their mood (or sell mood alteration to adult buyers) with disapproved substances?

No. It's not.

[Citizen]

Mona said,
90% of the public ARE morons. Witness the percentage that uncritically think locking people -- moms and dads -- in cages is moral and good if those people alter their mood (or sell mood alteration to adult buyers) with disapproved substances.

Mona, you're wrong in the same way that these anti-war protesters are. You disagree with public, therefore they must be stupid. Isn't it possible that people critically think locking people -- moms and dads -- in cages is moral and good if those people alter their mood (or sell mood alteration to adult buyers) with disapproved substances? Maybe their premises are different than your's, maybe they interpret the data differently than you, maybe they really do have an irrational fear of drugs. Who knows? But painting yourself as you have is not winning any converts.

[Rick Barton]

R. C. Dean:
"For example, the claim that Bush lied by saying Saddam had sought uranium in Niger simply isn't true."

The only reasonable conclusion is that the Bush administration mislead us:

Intelligence officials successfully excised a line in the president's speech in Cincinnati about Iraq seeking nuclear material from Niger, while the language in the State of the Union says 'sought uranium from Africa.' Beyond forged documents no evidence was forthcoming. The reference to Africa remained in the State of the Union because it is harder to refute and the effect to frighten the American people could still be realized.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/14/white.house.intel/

You can be pretty sure a politician has lied when he/she says things like 'When I gave the speech, the line was relevant' as Bush did when he was confronted to prove previous claims about Iraq's weapons program. (see above link)

[Rick Barton]

Rebecca:
"Twelve years is long enough to determine if a country has made a good faith effort to abide by a treaty."

So the government starts a war? The cure is far worse than the disease.

[Mona]

hoof in mouth writes: "Anyone that believes 90% of the public is stupid will always be a powerless whiner. You may have all the right answers, but your contempt for the recipients of your genius ensures you will never have power to implement them."

Yeah, H.L. Mencken was a powerless whiner and influenced nothing and no one. 90% of the public ARE morons. Witness the percentage that uncritically think locking people -- moms and dads -- in cages is moral and good if those people alter their mood (or sell mood alteration to adult buyers) with disapproved substances. Similar majorities thought, a few centuries ago, that blaspheming the Trinity was just grounds for prison or death and juries here and in the UK convicted accordingly.