On Not Knowing, Not Believing or Not Caring

There's a question that regularly pops into my head, not every day, but at least a few times a week: How many of my fellow Ohioans know that the former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives is in federal prison for his role in the biggest corruption scandal in the state's history, a scandal so brazen that HBO Max made a documentary about it?

My guess is it's a vanishingly small number, seeing as the Republicans who at best knew of the scheme and at worst participated in it have been repeatedly rewarded by the voters with an ever-greater stranglehold on state government. But I don't know that people don't know. That's just my guess based on observable evidence of the degraded information environment in which we live and our collective knack for entertaining ourselves to distraction and death with our phones. There are two other options as well: 1) People have heard something about it, but don't believe it, or 2) They do know about it but they don't care.

Which makes me wonder, which is the biggest problem, people not knowing, not believing or not caring?

I had the same questions when I read about our U.S. Secretary of Defense tweeting in support of a pastor who believes women shouldn't have the right to vote.

Hegseth reposts video on social media featuring pastors saying women shouldn’t be allowed to vote

The man who oversees the nation’s military has reposted a video on X, formerly Twitter, about a Christian nationalist church that included various pastors saying women should no longer be allowed to vote and should “submit” to their husbands.

AP NewsKONSTANTIN TOROPIN

Call me naive or irrationally optimistic – and on my bad days I would tend to agree with you – but I think the biggest issue is the not knowing, rather than the not believing or not caring. Are a lot of people adrift in a sea of conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation (i.e., they don't believe)? Sure. Are there some folks who actually want some deformed spawn of crony capitalism and Christian nationalism (i.e., they don't care)? Seems like it, unfortunately. But rube that I am, I tend to think that if more people were aware of the news through more and better reporting (i.e., we worked on the not knowing bit), we would collectively be making better choices, and that the easiest way to tackle this issue is to support quality journalism. Am I aware that the journalism industry is seemingly more debilitated by the day? Yes, I am. But humor me. This is one of the things that's keeping me going.

Democracy takes work. Being an informed citizen takes work. It's just part of the deal, but it's worth it. Find two or three journalism sources you like and trust and that challenge your underlying assumptions from time to time, and pay for them. You'll be a patriot.