The Information Diet

Chapter 11. The Participation Gap

“The great lie politicians like me tell people like you is ‘vote for me and I’ll solve all your problems.’ The truth is, you have the power.”

—Governor Howard Dean ^[88]

Let’s go back to those signs: “Enlist Here to Die for Halliburton” and “Keep your Government Hands Off My Medicare.” For me, they were the signals that something was wrong with our democracy—that our nation suffers from an information obesity dilemma, especially in the world of politics.

To figure out what was going on in the information diets of partisan activists in the United States, I built a simple service that subscribed to the various political email lists that are sent out by politicians, advocacy groups, and other political organizations. The result is one of the larger compendiums of political emails that exists organized by political spectrum. I waded through the various emails we received, and began to get a taste of what both sides of the political aisle were talking about.

Figure 11-1 shows what might end up in the inbox of a conservative activist. Figure 11-2 shows what could end up in the inbox of a liberal one.

Figure 11-1. The potential inbox of a conservative activist.

Figure 11-2. The potential inbox of a liberal activist.

In a world where both sides have information diets ...