Americans have a deep rooted belief that our political system is the best in the world. We have mastered democracy, and no other country has a fair and equal representative government like ours. At one point, that may have been true. But today, you don't have to dig very deep to find just how much corruption and manipulation goes on behind the curtains. While the upper elite ruling class pull the strings in our political system, the masses are left fighting over things like gay marriage, health care or teachers collective bargaining rights. When we are scared of anything but the truth, the ruling class could not be happier.
Although, the question of whether fear alone can be used to influence voters is like dirt alone makes trees grow. There are countless ways politicians, campaigns, the media, or our corporate masters can influence voters. Fear can usually prove to be more successful than someone who stands on a stage and tells you the truth. But, isn't that what we want? The truth?
Of course, we all prefer the truth. But, it also seems the truth is something many people have a hard time believing: cue fearful conspiracy theory. In political advertising, a common basic conspiracy theory would include the belief that a series of events are somehow the result of an intentional or covert attempt to prevent certain facts from becoming public knowledge. It makes it very easy for people to believe in lies when they want to believe the lie. How many people believe the teachers unions broke the budget in Wisconsin? How many people are certain that the U.S. government covered up a UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico? What about the government involvement in the J.F.K. assassination? Iraq was behind 9/11? Was our own government behind 9/11? Did Barack Obama really want your grandmother to go in front of "death panel"? How do we know what is true or false?
Deception through a conspiracy theory can present an illusion that there is a sinister cause of some social, economic, or political problem. We can go back and look at Germany in the early 1930's. Germany was in social and economic chaos resulting from the repressive conditions resulting from the Treaty of Versailles. Through brutal sanctions, it essentially punished Germans for World War I. It had stripped Germany of its industry and infrastructure, denied them trade, or virtually any way of making money. And with the great depression factored in, Germany became very desperate to try anything: cue Adolf Hitler. Hitler’s Nazi party was elected by playing on the widespread fear and anti-semitism of the era, and creating a mass wave of German patriotism through a rapid buildup of military strength. It got people back to work, and in a few short years put Germany in a much better economic position than most of its neighbors. But, despite the short term benefits, we all know the result of Hitler’s use of conspiracies and propaganda.
Nazi German could be used as a "worst case" example of what could happen when a nation is lead to believe rampant conspiracies. The U.S. today is not anything like Nazi Germany, but commonalities do exist. As the public becomes more insecure because of economic reasons, the need for a tangible enemy becomes stronger. Someone facing unemployment would find it easier to blame "BIG government" for their problems than the extremely complicated system of world economics, especially when someone like Glen Beck tells them so. The fact that a TV personality may have an agenda of their own: cue Goldline.com.... and that their agenda would not be beneficial to the unemployed worker watching now becomes irrelevant. The viewer watching now has a tangible enemy.
Fear and conspiracy theories can serve to absolve people of some degree of accountability. If they feel they are now being oppressed by a real enemy, their efforts of improving their situation can seem futile, or just a waste of time. And sadly, in our current 24 hour news cycle, and instant information at the click of a mouse, this cycle of fear can spread very fast. For instance, when Sarah Palin used the term "death panel", it spread like wild fire. The media repeated it nonstop almost immediately.
Ironically, insurance companies do have something similar to a "death panel". How many times have we heard about people with cancer being denied treatment or someone being denied a transplant because of some small detail in their application? Insurance companies are in business to make a profit. To do that, they must take premiums from healthy people, and deny coverage to sick people. But, instead of accepting that truth, we will just blame the scary black man and refer to the part of the bill that gives people that are terminally ill the right to end of life counseling by calling it a death panel.
Anyway, the tactic worked. Almost overnight, a majority of Americans that were in favor of major health care reform were now against it. Nobody took the time to actually read the text of the bill, and find that no such "death panel" exists. You see, that would require time, and real investigative journalism, something that in our immediate information society, many in the media have no time for. Look at an investigative TV show like 60 minutes, or Frontline. They can spend months, sometimes years getting a story out that is factual, unbiased and fair.
The same could be said for print media. How many people read the New York Times anymore? Does anybody remember the affects of Dan Ellsberg's secret release of "the pentagon papers" to the national news papers in the early 1970's? The process took years from when he retrieved the information, released it, the investigations, and then the final result. It helped to bring down then president Nixon and end the war in Vietnam. Could that happen today? Just look at a show today like Bill O'Rielly or any number of politically bias opinion shows or online news sources. By the time a piece of information is fact checked, and sources are interviewed, and the truth is reported, the information has become ancient history. Facts are no longer as important as who can get the information out first. They can apologize in a later broadcast if they reported something that was untrue. Do you think avid Fox viewers payed attention when they later apologized for the palm trees in Madison? Or mixing up the statistics on how 62% of people were actually supporting the Wisconsin public unions, but they said 62% opposed. Honest mistakes, right?
Not to say that our problems now are new. In a University of Oklahoma study by George Mann in 1989, he notes that "...the prevalent use of sophisticated advertising techniques in political campaigns presents a great danger, for citizens can be manipulated to make political decisions out of emotion rather than rational thought. People must be provided with the educational tools needed to detect the bias, distortion, and other tactics used to influence them. The social studies curriculum can provide students with the skills needed to detect bias that will allow them to make good decisions and thus become better citizens." In other words, I think he was not blaming the media. He was putting the focus more on education. So why would anyone want to cut the budget for education or for teachers?
Many Americans tend to believe that the worst thing that can result from the lack of skill in detecting bias in advertising is that some people might purchase products that are unneeded or inferior. However, media specialists have now expanded their markets, it’s not just products, it’s now politics. The skills developed years ago on Madison Avenue to sell Americans tooth paste are now being used to sell political ideologies and candidates. These clever techniques influence our political views and our politicians’ decisions. We should not allow groups or individuals with large amounts of money, like the Koch boys, to employ skilled advertising agencies to manipulate citizens into adopting certain ideologies or supporting certain candidates, but with the recent Citizens United case in the U.S. Supreme court, money is considered free speech. The more money your candidate or campaign or supporter has, the more "free speech" you have.
A recent study at Ohio State University suggests that instead of manipulation or education, the blame should be more on passive reporting. It found that "...people are more likely to doubt their own ability to determine the truth in politics after reading an article that simply lists competing claims without offering any idea of which side is actually correct. There are consequences to journalists that just report what each side says with no fact checking." When citizens feel like they can't figure out what the truth is, that attitude can lead many people to tune out politics completely. For citizens to really choose between government policies or candidates is not like choosing flavors of ice cream. The answers to our political debates need to be centered on facts.
In a country as politically split as ours, the goal of a candidate or politician is now only to win over a very small group of people. Liberals and conservatives have done a good job over the last generation of polarizing their bases. It’s the group in the middle that they fight for. Independent America. In a winner take all political system, all you need is one more vote than your opponent. Why spend all your money and resources campaigning on facts? 20% to 30% of the people are going to vote for you just because you say you are a democrat, or a republican. 20% to 30% will never vote for you because of the same thing. Half of the electorate no longer matters. This is when candidates really need to one up their opponent to get that one extra vote. And they will do anything to get it. One side will tell you the other is going to take your guns. Or maybe invoke religion into their campaign. Maybe they will tell you that your support of gay rights or women's rights is somehow going against God? Maybe they will run an ad with actors playing Vietnam swift boat veterans who denounce a candidate that was a Vietnam swift boat veteran?
There seems to be no sign that the trend of influencing voters through fear and emotion will slow down anytime soon. What the hell can we do? Term limits? Public financing of campaigns? Real campaign reform to bring to light who is actually paying the tab for a candidate? Taking to the streets in large protests? Lately, it seems that protesting maybe the only way to make our voices heard. The best thing we can all do is stay informed. Take the time to research politicians and policies. The truth is there, it never went away, and we are just being forced to work harder to find it. When the next election or controversial bill comes around, they will know that people are not going to fact check every little sound bite that comes out. So they will use human psychology, and tell you what you want to hear. Or, they will prey on our own basic instincts, and tell you to be scared of something that you have never even heard of. Or be scared of the government! Be scared of the poor! Be scared of the gays! Be scared of unions! Be scared of health care! Be scared of taxes, because if the rich have to pay higher taxes, they might not hire you! Don't let these things scare you. They want you to be scared of something so you forget about how bad the upper 1% is screwing you. THEY need to be scared of YOU!
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