{"id":1015,"date":"2019-04-24T10:50:26","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T17:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1015"},"modified":"2019-04-22T11:02:13","modified_gmt":"2019-04-22T18:02:13","slug":"fighting-false-memes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1015","title":{"rendered":"Fighting False Memes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When a junior high classmate was a fool, we usually ignored\nhim. When he said foolish things, we usually dismissed his statements. But when\nhe spread falsehoods, we knew it was the right thing to do to call a lie a lie.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has been a repeated meme coming from Idaho legislative\nRepublicans that \u201cthe voters didn\u2019t know what they were voting for\u201d when they\napproved Prop 2 Medicaid Expansion, last November. I can\u2019t speak for every\nvoter\u2019s knowledge, but I collected a lot of petition signatures. When I spoke\nto registered voters, asking for their signatures on the petitions to qualify\nfor the ballot, in the cold, in the snow, in the sun and in the wind; when I\nasked them in Clearwater, in Idaho in Nez Perce, Kootenai and Latah Counties, I\nfound most were already informed about the issue and had decided already\nwhether to sign the petition or not. Many came across the parking lot to sign.\nSome shook their heads and waved me off, already opposed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I worked with Reclaim Idaho to both draft the initiative and\ninform their volunteers. When talking with voters, you better be informed and\naccurate because you don\u2019t want just their signature, you need their trust.\nFalse claims destroy trust; or they should. Further, the fastest way to burn\nout trusted, informed volunteers is asking them to misrepresent something. Trust\nis built from the ground up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As to whether the volunteers were informed or just biased\nadvocates, I would stand any Reclaim volunteer up against any Idaho Republican\nlegislator on a Jeopardy about Idaho Medicaid Expansion Facts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlex, I\u2019ll take Eligibility for 200.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the idea that Reclaim Idaho hornswoggled Idaho voters with\nfalsehoods or misrepresentations is a lie. Legislators might be thinking of the\nother initiative on the ballot that used mostly paid signature gatherers and\nthe voters clearly saw through. Or they might be confused. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another false meme being spread by butt-hurt legislative\nRepublicans is that \u201cthe costs are unknown\u201d. Sorry, the costs are in the federal\nlaw: Idaho will pay 10% of the total costs. Of course, If Idaho would have\nenrolled in 2016, the costs would have been 0%, ramping up to the full 10% in\n2020. So, by delaying this expansion, fiscally conservative Idaho Republican\nlegislators have made Idaho buy in at the highest price. Doing this six years\nago would have saved Idaho taxpayers hundreds of millions. It is true, we don\u2019t\nknow what the full enrollment numbers will be. We have good estimates. But the\ncost will be 10% state, 90% Federal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, the Republican legislators have their shorts in a twist\nabout how the initiative did not designate where the funds would come from. Of\ncourse not; that\u2019s the legislature\u2019s job to figure out the budget. May I point\nout that the \u201cSideboards\u201d bill the can\u2019t-sit-down Republican legislators passed\ndid not designate where its funding would come from either? Further, the \u201cfiscal\nnote\u201d on the \u201cSideboards\u201d bill was a joke, a sham, an insult to any serious\nbudget planner, and the state employs a few good ones. But the butt-stung\nRepublicans sure voted for that one, didn\u2019t they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we confronted the junior high fool with his lies, the untruths might have continued to spread. We humans are so susceptible to the contagion of untruth. But the confrontation was not just to stop the spread, but to change future behavior. Maybe the fool would learn to be more careful with the truth in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All Comments read but not posted.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a junior high classmate was a fool, we usually ignored him. When he said foolish things, we usually dismissed his statements. But when he spread falsehoods, we knew it was the right thing to do to call a lie … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1019,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions\/1019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}