Misinformation is something that has plagued the United States for centuries, and it doesn’t appear to be getting any better. It is used to tell fake stories about celebrities, start medical myths, and many other things. But the place that misinformation is both the most apparent and detrimental is US politics. Obviously, the two most popular parties in America are the Republican and Democrat parties, and both have had their encounters with misinformation. However, both parties having encounters with misinformation does not mean that they are both equally subject to either spreading or creating misinformation. In recent history, Republicans have had a harder time telling fact from fiction, confusing truth and reality due to an unquestioning obedience to Doanld Trump, their current leader.
For example, 70% of Republicans believe that Biden’s victory in the 2020 election was illegitimate (CNN 2023), despite 64 different courts and judges (some of which were appointed by Trump) ruling that the claim had no merit to it. On January 6th 2021, Trump supporting insurrectionists, led a violent raid on our national capital, fueled by Trump’s lie that their vote was stolen from them. Trump then claimed that January 6th was a “day of love” (CBS 2024) despite the fact that 5 police officers died due to the attack as well as one civilian. He even went as far as to refer to his supporters on that day who were arrested as “hostages”.
In 2021, a Washington Post fact checker determined how many false or misleading claims Donald Trump made during his first four year term. The number was not 1,000, 2,000, or even 10,000. No, it was 30,573, coming out to an average of just over 20 a day. When comparing Biden’s first 100 days of office versus Trumps, Biden told 67 false or misleading claims, which was 511 fewer than Trump in his first 100 days, according to the same fact checker formula used by the Washington Post. Any claims made that the Washington Post is biased against Trump hold little merit to it, for in this past election in 2024, the Washington Post was barred from sharing its public endorsement of Kamla Harris by its owner Jeff Bezoz per CNBC reports. Bezoz also attended Trump’s inauguration.
Despite Trump’s raid of lies and misinformation he was able to win the presidential election in 2024. He was a felon on 34 counts, impeached twice in four years, and found civilly liable by a jury of his peers of sexually abusing E Jean Carroll (AP) as well as being the oldest major party candidate in history. He was also the only candidate in history to do any ONE of the things listed above. So how is this possible? The answer is complex, but his ability to create misinformation and lies and his supporters willingness to listen is largely responsible. A study conducted by Adam J. Berinsky of the Massachusetts Institution of Technology compared people of different political ideologies and their abilities to detect misinformation. The study was done with the following steps:
Experiment 1: Impact of Source Credibility on Veracity Assessment
- Participants: Individuals with varying political affiliations (Republicans, Democrats, etc.).
- Stimuli: Statements made by Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign (both factual and false).
- Attribution Manipulation: Some statements were explicitly attributed to Trump, while others were presented without attribution.
- Initial Belief Rating: Participants rated their belief in the statements.
- Correction Phase: Facts were affirmed, and misinformation was retracted.
- Belief Reassessment: Participants re-rated their belief in the statements either immediately or after a delay.
Findings:
- Republicans believed statements more when attributed to Trump, while Democrats believed them less.
- Trump supporters reduced belief in misinformation after correction but did not change their voting preferences.
Experiment 2: Effectiveness of Explanation Based on Source
- Participants: Similar political affiliations as in Experiment 1.
- Stimuli: Explanations of misinformation corrections presented by either:
- The participant’s own political party.
- The opposing political party.
- Belief Updating Measurement: Participants re-rated their belief in the statements.
- Findings:
- The political source of the explanation had little impact.
- Belief updating was influenced more by the perceived credibility of the original source of the information.
5. Overall Conclusion:
- People use political figures as heuristics to judge truthfulness.
- Belief correction occurs but does not necessarily change political preferences.
- The credibility of the original source matters more than the party delivering corrections.
The study showed that Republicans were more subject to listening to fake news, determining facts based on who is saying them rather than if they are true, and being less willing to change their voting patterns even when claims are proven false. However the study did not dive into the why. Part of it might be due to lower education levels among Republicans compared to Democrats. About 63% of Republican voters do not have a college degree as opposed to 49% on the Democrat side. This number only increases among people with masters and Phds, where 65 % of people with one of these degrees vote Democrat (Pew Research Center). However, it is nearly impossible to determine why Republicans are more likely to believe misinformation.
In a Forbes Article written by Alev Leetaru titled “How Data and Information Literacy Could End Fake News”, Leetaru argues that a tool extension could fact check fake news and ensure higher levels of data literacy saying “imagine a browser plugin that automatically flagged quoted statements and factual statements in an article and conducted a quick online search to see if there was strong disagreement on who made the statement or the specifics of the factual statement” (Leetaru 4). However I do not agree with this claim. As proven prior in Berinsky, even after claims are proven false, people tend to not change in their stances or voting patterns. Also people would just call the tool false, as Trump has called most media that is critical of him.
Overall, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why Republicans are more susceptible to fake news, but it is apparent that they are compared to their Democrat counterparts. This inability to be able to tell what is true or not has led to many things, such as some people believing Ukraine started the war with Russia, which is the largest land war since WWII, thinking COVID was a fake virus, etc. It is clear that this misinformation is harming many people around the world, but it is not clear how to stop it.
Works Cited
CNN. (2023, August 3). Poll: Majority of Republicans still think the 2020 election was illegitimate. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/03/politics/cnn-poll-Republicans-think-2020-election-illegitimate/index.html
CBS News. (2024). Trump discusses January 6 at Univision town hall. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-january-6-univision-town-hall/
The Washington Post. (2021). Biden’s first 100 days: Fact-checking his claims. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/biden-fact-checker-100-days/
CNBC. (2024, October 25). Jeff Bezos allegedly blocked Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/25/jeff-bezos-killed-washington-post-endorsement-of-kamala-harris-.html
AP News. (2024). Trump’s rape trial and Carroll’s allegations: A timeline. https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a4b98bb3947d42af9ec83d7db
Swire Briony, Berinsky Adam J., Lewandowsky Stephan and Ecker Ullrich K. H. 2017 Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon R. Soc. Open Sci.4160802 http://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160802
Pew Research Center. (2023, July 12). Demographic profiles of Republican and Democratic voters. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/demographic-profiles-of-republican-and-democratic-voters/
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