In theory, the Internet has the potential to be a tool for good in an election. In reality, it is mostly used for misinformation, fostering tribalism, and gaslighting... and we are all paying the price.
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In theory, the Internet would be a real benefit to democracy. It certainly should be. It allows voters to look beyond campaign ads and evening news reports. With a click of a button, all of a candidate’s speeches, every scrap written about them, and every independent analysis of their policies are available.
Or, if one of them were to be charged with crimes, for example, the Internet would allow curious voters to read the indictment(s) for themselves.
However, most American voters don’t seem to be curious one bit.
Instead, even though supporters of both Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump agree that this is the most consequential election of their lives, tens of millions of them choose to be willfully ignorant.
That doesn’t mean that they don’t use the Internet. In fact, they probably have consulted it more than ahead of any other election in history.
However, they use it not for gaining knowledge but rather for having their views confirmed, for getting angry, and for reinforcing the walls of their self-imposed bubbles.
To a degree, this applies to supporters of both candidates. Then again, it also really doesn’t.
Let’s look at a couple of examples.
Last week, Trump caused a(nother) controversy when he talked about former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) at a rally in Arizona and made a remark that some people interpreted as him fantasizing about having her face a firing squad.
It was classic Trump… not just the imagery of violence directed at his “enemies,” but also enough ambiguity to provide him with plausible deniability once the backlash hit (which would then allow him to assume the role of a victim that he loves so much).
“Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it,” he said. “You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
In the broader context of the speech, it was clear that Trump was characterizing her as an armchair warrior who would willingly send Americans into battle without picking up a weapon herself (a curious charge from the former president, who famously dodged the draft).
He did not, however, call for Cheney to be executed, which is the interpretation many anti-Trump news outlets and commentators chose.
Any inquiring mind would have come to the same conclusion if they had bothered to watch the clip from the speech in context… and they would have come to realize that his remarks, i.e., fantasizing about violence befalling his adversaries, were bad enough as they were delivered.
But most supporters of Harris probably only saw a snippet from the speech, which allowed them to get outraged (which, in turn, allowed Republicans to claim that their hero was unfairly treated).
This is a fairly typical example of Democratic “propaganda.” Something is being blown out of proportion that shouldn’t/needn’t have been.
And then there are the Republicans, who are operating in a completely different league.
In their case, just about everything they tell their voters is a lie on some level.
Sure, some of the underlying things the entire campaign is based on are real, such as some undocumented immigrants murdering Americans and committing other crimes, or some trans girls playing high school sports, but, usually, any kind of context is missing.
Some of these lies are more difficult to figure out than others. Some of them are embarrassingly easy to disapprove.
To the former president, that doesn’t matter because his supporters don’t even want to know the actual truth.
They simply want to believe what they are told because, otherwise, they would just vote for a despicable human being who is a mentally ill serial criminal with fascist tendencies.
Trump and his allies, especially Republicans in Congress and Elon Musk, are taking full advantage of this.
They are treating GOP voters like toddlers who want to believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. The only difference is that a 3-year-old doesn’t Google, “Is the Easter Bunny real?”
Of course, in some of their cases, it’s difficult to know if they are just gullible and lack intellectual curiosity, or if they are malicious actors in the greatest con of American voters in history.
Come tomorrow, their motivations won’t matter… just whether they were able to successfully exploit the willful ignorance of tens of millions of angry and scared Americans.
