Survey Shows Majority Of GOP Voters Support Restoring Net Neutrality
from the it-ain't-a-democracy dept
We’ve noted more than a few times how net neutrality rules were just some stopgap rules to prevent telecom monopolies from being assholes in the absence of real competition. They were modest protections (by international standards) attempting to protect consumers and competitors from giant unchecked monopolies we’ve let run amok for the better part of a generation.
Telecom and GOP joint propaganda turned this on its head, convincing some voters that net neutrality was “government run amok,” a radical policy position, or a dire threat to broadband investment (none of these arguments were true, but were relentlessly repeated for years).
Despite those efforts, a new poll indicates that a majority of GOP voters actually understand the difference and support restoring net neutrality rules:
Nearly two-thirds of Republican voters support reinstating net neutrality regulations when presented with detailed arguments for and against the move, according to a new survey from the University of Maryland shared exclusively with The Technology 202.
Of course (waves tiny American flag democratically) that’s in stark contrast to the GOP’s behavior, which involved working hand in hand with telecom monopolies to gut federal and state telecom oversight (using fake and dead people to pretend the plan had public support), and has extended to blocking popular reformer Gigi Sohn from being seated at the FCC so the agency remains in partisan gridlock.
The GOP talks endlessly about their newfound support for “antitrust reform” as it pertains to “big tech,” but only because they want Twitter to stop moderating political propaganda and hate speech. Said “antitrust reformers” simply adore monopolization and consolidation in countless other sectors, whether it’s energy, telecom, banking, insurance, air travel, or food production.
This is far from the first poll that makes it clear a majority of Americans support net neutrality rules and want them restored. The majority of Americans also despise their cable and phone monopolies, and support both implementing meaningful consumer protections and taking steps to drive more competition to market.
Instead of doing either of those things the entirety of the GOP (and a substantial portion of the DNC) not only don’t hold telecom monopolies accountable, they’re literally incapable of even acknowledging they exist, or that they cause numerous harms to innovation, markets, and consumers.
Filed Under: antitrust reform, broadband, competition, digital divide, gop, high speed internet, monopolies, net neutrality
Comments on “Survey Shows Majority Of GOP Voters Support Restoring Net Neutrality”
Choices choices...
Republican politician: Sure a majority of the people who vote for me are for network neutrality but the companies that give me such delightful ‘donations’ are very much not, and it’s not like the people voting me into office are going to vote democrat if I either ignore or actively help those companies so…
I think the problem is the words “detailed arguments”.
Good luck with that.
Republican Senator says...
“They’re coming for your guns, they’re coming for your guns!!”
Phew, I think it’s working
Surveys also show that a majority of republicans believe the election was stolen, we’re controlled by a baby eating cabal, and trump is our savior.
Kinda given up on surveys being of any possible use, all it takes is 1 unhinged congresscritter screeching how she is being silenced and opinions will change faster than Ted Cruz can run away from a reporter asking why he thinks the US is the only country with school shootings.
GOP voters understand net neutrality about as well as they understand Section 203.
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Or as well a I can spell “230”.
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The original text worked just fine, and could have earned you a funny award 🙂
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i’m on board with that, it was pretty good.
At the same time, the correction shows that it is a typo and not something else, so points for that too.
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GOP voters and understand. Isn’t that an oxymoron?
There is a big difference in thinking between the average GOP voter and the people running the party organization. The Dems have the same problem. The folks running the various party organizations have become rather hard core left or right depending on party. Neither has much tolerance for a middle ground politician. RINO and DINO are terms frequently heard from party officials to describe anyone daring to try a moderate approach. The problem for politicians is that in order to get party support and the resulting campaign help and funding, they have to at least appear to conform to the dictates of the Party. And the true believers in the far right or left now have an easy time of getting official party support. Twenty or thirty years ago, such outliers would have been labeled as radicals and largely ignored by the two parties.
Plus the comment above about corporate donations is spot on. Many corporations give to PACs that then give to the two parties so that no matter who wins, the corporation can go to that person and say “We helped you get elected and would really appreciate your vote for/against ….”
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You…you actually think the Democrats in charge of the DNC have gone “hard core” to the political left?
how fucking high were you when you thought that
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Anyone not extreme left, or extreme right, can see both parties’ leadership has gone to shit.
That you’re completely blind to it is both disheartening and telling.
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… said nobody demonstrating any capacity for rational independent thought, ever.
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Proving the statement true on a left wing blog.
How brave of you.
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… said nobody with any knowledge of Mike & techdirt, ever.
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Isn’t it amazing that pointing out fallacious statements makes you belong on the left of the political spectrum. The logical conclusion from this is that people, like you, who supposedly adhere to the political right must be less intelligent, or in common parlance, stupid.
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Dude, I know Democrat leadership is awful. But to think they’ve gone “hard core” left is ridiculous when you know that the party in general tends to both deny support for leftist policies and skews closer to centrism in practice (e.g., Joe Biden and his desire to deal with Republicans who will rarely deal with him or the Democrats in general).
Unfortunately as has been show time and again… the majority of Republican politicians (maybe all) could give a rat’s ass what the majority of republican voters think. As long as the politician is for guns and against abortion they will get almost any R voter to vote against the voter’s best interest.
If only
“when presented with detailed arguments” is doing some heavy lifting. If they would leave their echo chamber and be ‘presented with [enough] detailed arguments’ about other issues they might not be GOP anymore. A big part of being GOP is avoiding detailed arguments.
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You show your ignorance through your willingness to generalize, thus invalidating your argument and inviting others to do the same to and those you agree with. So don’t do it. Qualify your statements, or they are false.
And now, a song to emphasize the point:
Generalize! Let’s generalize!
Generalize! Let’s generalize!
We don’t care if we’re right
We don’t care if we’re wrong
We don’t care what they say
We just gripe the day away
Don’t matter we’ve not seen much
Don’t matter what we hear
Don’t matter what we know
Our minds ain’t gonna change
Stuck like tires in the snow
Generalize! Let’s generalize!
Generalize! Let’s generalize!
Stubborn pride is our way
Quick assumptions make our day
Bein’ wrong we can’t bear
We’ve got biases to spare
Don’t matter we’ve not seen much
Don’t matter what we hear
Don’t matter what we know
Our minds ain’t gonna change
Stuck like tires in the snow
Generalize! Let’s generalize!
Generalize! Let’s generalize!
Generalize! Let’s generalize!
Generalize! Let’s generalize!
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… said nobpdy demonstrating any capacity for rational independent thought, ever.
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Sociological studies can only ever be generalities. Population level trends do not and can not dictate individual behavior. They are a snapshot of a society at the time the study was done. Core to the idea of population level studies is that they change over time and that we can as a society take steps to intentionally change behavior to affect those trends.
Many studies indicate that overall, GOP voters are less informed, and exposure to Less conservative sources of information tends to change their thinking long term. This is why college graduates, on average, skew liberal or left.
It is important to note the connection is not between conservatism and Knowledge, but the GOP voter. Its not a claim against the idea of conservatism and ‘the right’ nor is it an attack on conservative ideas, but specifically the connection exists in the voting base that supports the current GOP. Similar trends can be seen internationally, but a broader, more balanced overton window seems to improve the ability of a populace to be informed.
And if you yourself are more informed than the average, good for you. It doesn’t change the current measurement of population level trends.
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Actually, I am better informed than the average voter.
But unfortunately, I’m also not actually very well informed.
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As Aristotle wrote in Metaphysics (paraphrased): All things are knowable, but, in a individual’s journey towards complete knowledge, there will be times that new knowledge shows there are more things to learn
“Survey Shows Majority Of GOP Voters Support Restoring Net Neutrality”
it definitely wont be back any time soon then! you all know the rules, if something can help the customer, the public, it will be stomped on from a great height because there is nothing more important, certainly in the USA than POSSIBLY reducing any company’s income!!
The GOP does not care.
But the US is a capitalist dictatorship, so such a thing will never happen.
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I’d say we’re more of a plutocratic oligarchy.
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I’d say we’re more of a plutocratic oligarchy.
Kleptocratic, surely.
I have to read this survey. I can only assume that the phrase “net neutrality” isn’t used but it’s most important components are described. Republicans love to poison a phrase they don’t understand and then ignorantly use it to mislead people into voting for things that hurt themselves (so long as they think it hurts those other people a little bit more).
I mean, the voters could support restoring net neutrality, but they’d be going up against people who’d rather take the opinion of dead people shadowvoters like Richard Bennett.