Recently, an article came to my attention that was published in The New Yorker on Nov. 13, 2024, soon after our last presidential election. It’s titled “Republican victory and the ambience of information,” written by Nathan Heller. Like no other piece I have read, it gets to the reason why Donald Trump was able to con so many of our citizens to vote for him over Kamala Harris.
Heller’s article drew a comparison between Harris’ use of “micro-targeting with facts” and Trump’s “big, sloppy notions seeded nationwide.” At Trump’s rallies, for example, it wasn’t facts that were important but “vibes.” According to Heller, “Trump seemed to think that much of the voting public couldn’t be bothered with details — couldn’t be bothered to fact-check, or deal with fact checkers.” Perhaps Heller’s most memorable point was that the planting of ideas was about “seeding the ambience of information, throwing facts and fake facts alike into an environment of low attention, with the confidence that, like minnows released individually into a pond, they will eventually school and spawn.” This ultimately creates an atmosphere where even false information seems like common sense.
Finally, we get to the key point: “In a country where more than half of adults have literacy below a sixth-grade level, ambient information, however thin and wrong, is more powerful than actual facts.”
If Democrats can’t find a way to reach this cohort, they cannot win. Trump’s incessant lying, hypomania, bottomless craving for adulation, constant repetition, hateful retribution and always being “in your face” are integral to his attraction. When charm and cruel fakery count more than facts, we dull and rational types have our work cut out. Thank God, reality and morality are on our side. Let’s go save our democracy!
Frederick Longacre
Hockessin
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