The measure, called Question 3, prompted heated debate in the months leading up to the election. Central Maine Power and Versant Power, the state’s dominant utilities, poured more than $40 million into a campaign opposing the referendum, outspending Pine Tree Power advocates 34 to 1. Political groups funded by the utilities and their parent companies mailed flyers and aired ads on TV, radio, and social media, urging Mainers to reject the measure, which would have effectively put the two companies out of business.
Of course people have agency but no one’s immune to propaganda
No one is completely immune, but that does not mean everyone is equally scrupulous.
Also we don’t give everyone a pass just because propaganda exists, plenty of racist propaganda exists, but we still mock, condemn and hold to account Klansman and Neo-nazis. We don’t treat them like hapless babes lost in the woods who couldn’t help but fall for it.
Then what is to be done about all of these shitty Mainers?
Accept they aren’t really reachable, focus on reaching the people we can. Don’t infantilize them, insult them, make memes about how dumb they are so they feel shame for being so poorly informed which will discourage them from showing their ass in the future. Seek to dis-empower them, create new political structure that don’t allow them as much of a say in society.
The difference between people that vote in favour of shitty policies like this vs people that vote for racist policies is huge. You cannot fault the average person for voting in favour of keeping utilities private the same way you can fault people voting for nazi policies. Understanding why a publicly owned utility is better for any non-capitalist (meaning people that own capital, not people who prefer capitalism) is a matter of political literacy, of which the average American is objectively severely lacking. It’s easy to fall for propoganda (and at a 40:1 ratio there’s no winning here) when there’s no deeper understanding of the implications. Voting in racist policies is totally different imo. It doesn’t require political literacy to understand that racism is bad, if you fall for racist propaganda then more severe measures are needed, something deeper is at play.