cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/20071879
OK, so that is in the running for clickbait hed of the year, but it’s actually apt for the column.
It may seem paradoxical to write this in an opinion piece. But it needs saying: arguments alone have no meaningful effect on people’s beliefs. And the implicit societal acceptance that they do is getting in the way of other, more effective forms of political thinking and doing.
I’m a researcher who studies the intersection of psychology and politics, and my work has increasingly led me to believe that our culture’s understanding of how political persuasion works is wrong. In the age of Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the rise of the far right, commentators have endlessly opined on the problems of fake news, polarisation and more. But they’ve mostly been looking in the wrong places – and have focused too much on words.
Take “debates”. They’re a central part of most election campaigns around the world, seen as so influential that they’re often governed by strict rules around media coverage and balance. Yet evidence suggests that watching debates has no impact on opinions whatsoever. In 2019 researchers analysed 56 TV debates in 22 elections in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Europe from 1952 to 2016. The study tracked nearly 100,000 respondents to see whether debates helped undecided or decided voters to make up or change their minds. They found no evidence that they did. In 2012, a reporter ran another analysis about whether debates influenced election outcomes. As he put it: “The effects of debates on eventual votes are likely mild, and, in most cases, effectively nil.”
If you do not vote, you are participating in the agenda of the authoritarians who want to take the right to vote away from everyone (e.g. Donald Trump saying “you won’t have to vote anymore”). “Voting doesn’t matter” is their propaganda. If you repeat his message, you have been fooled by the propaganda and are now helping to spread it.
DO NOT BUY THIS CRAP.
If you encourage others not to vote, you are complicit with the authoritarians.
I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, but fucking VOTE. People fought wars over that, demanded changes in law for that, marched on Washington for that, got assassinated for speaking about that. Anyone who tells you it doesn’t matter is a fool, ignorant of the lessons of history.
No, I’m not participating in any agenda. That’s the point. I’m basically anti-political now. I reject everything that’s available because everything available rejects me. It wasn’t like that in the past, but now it is and I can’t do anything about it, therefore I have to accept it. I learned to accept a lot in the last few years.
I don’t encourage anybody regarding anything, it’s their business who they vote for or if they vote at all. It’s their world, not mine. Both conservatives and progressives made sure that I understood this lesson. It was a surprise regarding progressives because I thought they were the good guys. Well, live and learn.
But hey. I make it easier for you. Let’s just say I don’t exist. Cases like mine would make the progressives look just as bad as the conservatives and you don’t want that, right? And because I don’t exist, my potential vote doesn’t exist either. Simple sophism. Maybe I’m just a MAGA who votes for Trump anyway. Maybe I’m just a Russian troll who isn’t allowed to vote. Maybe I’m just an AI which isn’t allowed to vote either (yet). Maybe I’m just a fever dream, it’s up to you. You can choose freely to make sure that the progressives will never look bad by denying my whole existence. Wouldn’t that make everything so much easier? No need for self-criticism and reformation - just like the conservatives. Neat! And so convenient. Yeah, let’s do it that way.
And if we’re at this stage, why not pretend that Trump’s second presidency is a fever dream as well? I mean, the progressives are perfect, right? Because they must be. Therefore they must have won the election and now we’re actually living in a progressive Utopia instead of the Fourth Reich in the making. No ICE, no self-proclaimed health experts with brainworms and fear of vaccines and of course no orange guy who likes little girls a little bit too much. It’s all just a nightmare caused by too much pizza before bed. Isn’t the easiest solution always the best?
If my agenda is for you to not participate in the vote, then by abstaining you end up participating in my agenda whether you want to or not. If I can disappoint you to the point of not bothering the next time, then that’s 1 less person affecting the outcome of the vote, making it incrementally easier to forecast and manipulate the results.
Others have said it better than I, but I worry this just plays into the hands of authoritarians who rely on apathy such as this to seize more power. I implore you to find your own terms on which you can engage with politics, but do (re) engage with them.
Just because some of us stop paying attention to “politics” doesn’t mean politicians lose any power - it generally goes the other way.
I don’t see the point of spending a lot of time and money to go to the next polling station just to vote for some rich elitist hypocrite who actually put the final nail in my coffin. I sacrificed enough in the past, now it’s your turn to do something for me for once. Quid pro quo.
I don’t see the point of saving one days’ effort and earnings to let trump into office and now have to pay more on so many goods and services because of his actions and policies.
the rich elitist hypocrite may not make it into office without your support, but they’ll survive fine without it. Your own quality of life will actively worsen if you just stop voting, so I hope you’ve found ways to offset that (like a more local community and/or support network).
I’ll be dead in 3-5 months. What are they going to do? Ressurect me and give me something they can take away again just to torture me? I don’t think this is going to happen. They could try to kill me earlier but then they would have to fight with progressives and especially their allies (“We saw him first!”), with the latter being way ahead in the game.
And no, there is no such thing as a local community or support network for people like me. There was decades ago but it’s all gone now. Can’t be brought back. Both conservatives and progressives make sure it can’t be brought back.