Why This Matters

Bridge from Better Angels

Availability + motivated reasoning

• What is vivid and recent feels more common than it is
• We are quicker to believe what fits our side
• That is why both left- and right-coded falsehoods spread

Information consumers

Misinformation

Disinformation

Three kinds of lies

55% of the budget for defense?

Meme claiming 55 percent of the budget goes to defense

What the meme leaves out

• The 55% figure is for the discretionary budget only
• Discretionary is roughly a quarter of the total federal budget
• Almost all defense spending is discretionary
• Almost none of Social Security, Medicare, or most mandatory programs is

The arithmetic

Broader picture

• Add state and local spending and the defense share of all government spending is closer to ~8–10%
• Everything else is the large majority

Same pattern, no footnote

Tax dollars meme without context

Unusual definitions / missing context

• Discretionary: set in each budget cycle
• Mandatory (nondiscretionary): set by standing law
• Total budget = both

Showing only discretionary makes defense look enormous and other priorities tiny.

Why someone who wants less defense spending should still care

Practical problem

• Bad numbers distract from real trade-offs
• Getting caught with a false meme damages credibility
• Listeners stop trusting the messenger — including on the parts that were true

Moral problem

Healthcare vs defense (another common meme)

Defense versus healthcare spending meme

Federal reality (order of magnitude)

• Healthcare (including Medicare) is larger than national defense in the federal budget
• Social Security alone is larger than defense
• Senior benefits (Social Security + Medicare) dwarf defense-related spending

Honest argument > viral pie chart.

AOC and guns

Fabricated quote meme attributed to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about gun rights

Status

Why it spreads

• Makes a political opponent look ignorant
• Ignores that the Second Amendment exists
• She has said she is a “believer in the Second Amendment” while supporting various restrictions

Pattern

“China pays the tariffs”

Headline on claim that China pays U.S. tariffs

Who actually pays

• Import duties are paid by U.S. importers to U.S. Customs
• Costs are largely passed to U.S. buyers
• Foreign governments do not write a check to the Treasury for the tariff

Trade deficit ≠ “losing money”

Trade deficit illustrated as a toilet-paper surplus

The idea

• A trade deficit means we imported more goods than we exported
• We received the goods (toilet paper, phones, clothes, parts)
• That is not the same as a business “losing money” with nothing in return

Parallel to the defense memes

Not limited by party

• Left-coded: discretionary budget as if it were the whole budget
• Right-coded: invented quotes; tariffs paid by “China”; deficit as pure loss
• Both make honest persuasion harder

Link to limiting government

Ground News

Ground News bias breakdown on a phone screen

What it helps with

• Same story, different outlets
• Bias distribution at a glance
• Blindspots: what one side is not covering

ground.news

Other simple habits

• Pause before sharing
• Ask: does this number match the total or only a slice?
• Ask: is this quote real? Primary source?
• Notice your own side’s bias before reacting

When a friend shares it

Prompts

• Have you shared something that later turned out false? What happened?
• If your side’s meme is wrong but the underlying goal feels right, what should you do?
• How does permanent-crisis media make misinformation easier to believe?

Next class

September 23 — Module 2 Head Start Day: no class

Reminders

• Use the head-start day for Module 2 work
• Stay current on Connect / journals / study guides as assigned

Authorship and License

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