Political Professionals, Money and Technology are Destroying Democracy
You might think that only reality is reality and only truth is truth. Political discourse is not, however, based on a common understanding of the reality or truth surrounding key issues.
There is a reason so many people in the USA and more and more in Canada, believe different non-fact-based messages from political parties and candidates. Too frequently a primary objective of political message designers is to create ‘Alternative facts’ by convincing people they are true. This is possible to do because as individuals we often do not understand what the reality surrounding political is, because the ‘Alternative facts’ are in accord with biases we have, or because they are more desirable to believe. The result can be new perceptions of what the actual facts are …. ‘Perception becomes reality!’
What is involved in getting people to perceive issues in alternative ways? Perhaps in ways different than they used to perceive them? I was a political pollster for most of my career and have seen the process work. The influence process used by political professionals (politicians, political organizers, political strategists who develop and disseminators messages, pollsters and lobbyists) is the same now as three or four decades ago. Albeit advances in information and communication technological have made the process more potent. Information can be collected more quickly and more broadly; production techniques make turn around time for developing quality communications shorter; omnipresent data bases make microtargeting of voter data and messaging down to the individual level possible (e.g. Twitter), in some US jurisdictions individuals’ voter identification files can be permanent. The process is much more scientific and less amateur than it used to be.
For example, say you want to promote a reduction (or increase) in public spending on health care. First you raise money or commitments for money to design a campaign. Then you discover what people believe about the subject by polling by telephone, online or big data. The question will be some version of, ‘Should we have more or less government spending on public health care’ or ‘Do you agree or disagree that more public spending on health care is a good idea or a bad idea?’
You then work, depending on what side you are on, with those who think more or less public health care spending is desirable in order to discover why they think the way they do. Once you know the best arguments for more or less public spending on health care you can build them into targeted or microtargeted communication campaigns for TV, radio, newspapers, online, social media, personal speaking tours, lobbying or other means.
The communication campaigns, depending on the side you are on, are to convince people of the wisdom of more or less public health care spending. After some time more and more people will come to feel strongly about their position on the issue and will begin to identify with it, speak out for it, perhaps advocate and lobby for it, perhaps set up or join groups to promote it. The communications programs become more effective over time, as experience leads to better microtargeting, better creative material and better message coverage. The arguments and message delivery techniques on both sides evolve and improve as analysts find out what people respond most strongly to.
Eventually if you have strong campaigns for both higher and lower public health care spending the population becomes divided into opposing polarized groups: those in favour of more sending and those in favour of less. As polarization increases rational arguments from experts become less and less relevant; people begin to react tribally and instinctively to verbal and visual cues; respect for opposing views decreases.
On many current issues in the USA, there are strongly committed sides married to their own views and beliefs and unwilling to accept any part of the other side’s argument. If ‘Politics is the art of the possible’ we come to a situation where less and less is possible.
Furthermore, in the US, recent political funding decisions by the Supreme Court to allow donors to remain anonymous while making larger and larger amounts of money available to finance partisan message formulation and dissemination. This is likely to increase the probability that major donors who desire the type of polarization referenced above can fund it.
I am very concerned, that if we leave it to politicians, political organizers, strategists, pollsters and major funders we will get more of the same increasingly partisan message development and microtargeted message distribution driven by more and more money and improved campaign technologies. It will lead to increased polarization and stalemate. This will never get us out of the current malaise and may well lead to non-democratic lobbyist driven and/or authoritarian solutions to our stalemates. Hence the title of this article; ‘Political Professionals, Money and Technology are Destroying Democracy.’
