In my government class, we talked about how the average voter forms his policy opinions from the cues of his political leaders. Using “heuristics”, or mental shortcuts, civilians will simply adopt the opinions of their political candidates about numerous complex policy issues so they don’t have to figure out how they truly feel as individuals. The characters in Harry Potter behave no differently, fully believing in the words of the Daily Prophet because the Ministry controls its publication. Therefore, people in the wizarding world cannot be blamed for trusting the Daily Prophet, despite its dubious reporting, because their complacency is so common in our own world, for good reason, that it would simply be hypocritical to think otherwise.
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