About that Election, and Social Media

 

When I was a teenager, I came up with a number that 85% of people were stupid. It was one of those cynical things that teens do. When I remembered that little piece of wisdom, I was comforted. Most people are stupid, it makes sense now. I’ve seen nothing to contradict that in 30 years.

I’ve had some time to wrestle with the disappointing outcome of the Presidential election – that is, speaking on behalf of freedom and anti-fascism and anti-rapists and pro-choice and –

Well, a lot of things.

It was a bit of a shock that Trump won so convincingly. (I guess we’ll never get that really good deep dive into election fraud he promised?) I liked to think it would be close, that it would be an electoral win, not popular vote. No way.

Wrong.

I’m handling it a lot better than some. After all, I’m an old white man of privilege without a daughter. I’ll probably see a benefit from it financially. I think the controlled perception that the economy is bad (despite unprecedented streak of low unemployment, jobs added every single month of the last four years, and stock market at all-time highs) and inflation is bad (and that’s controlled by the democrats lol) and the Haitians are bad (or is it Puerto Rico? Moving targets are so hard to pin down) and people think that Trump is going to fix it.

To make an analogy in technology, salespeople will tell you their tool will fix all your problems. But when you buy it and then get down to the weeds of it, you realize that it won’t and it never does, or that it’ll take a lot more work than you thought. There are people in every company who are allegedly smart but buy these tools and then realize later on that ‘oh shit’ that was the sales pitch.

My naivete is that I thought most people would see the big picture of what’s good for the country instead of their personal circumstances. As in, I spent a lot of money on groceries and I’m not happy about it so I’m going to vote for the felon fascist senile crazy unfit-for-office old man. Or just not vote for either to remain “neutral” in some fantasy land. Ha. (Fortunately, those who effectively sat it out by  casting a vote for independents were inconsequential.)

I will circle back to the comforting knowledge that the only thing that I can control is stuff that directly affects my life. And the truth is, there’s nothing that I can do about it until the next time there’s a vote for something.

Or rather, my job has nothing to do with politics, and I am not going to suddenly embark on a political activist career on the side, so hemming and feeding into the doom cycle news isn’t going to tell me anything more than I already know, and it’s only going to gain me, anxiety and stress.

And I don’t intend to spend the next four years creating health problems over something I can’t control. Just going to show up for every election, and be curious if the Democrats are going to get serious about combating an opponent who doesn’t care if it’s true, they only care, about saying the things that the people want to hear.

But they probably won’t have to lift a finger because what goes around comes around, and there’s not much the GOP can do to stop it. Social media’s AI engine won’t let it.

Effectively, the prescribed coded algorithms of social media platforms are designed to accelerate and augment negativity. Social media cares about maximizing the amount of time that you spend on it. And scientifically the more divisive or negative the content is the more time people will spend on it.

Really there’s very little the Democrats will have to do to motivate the electoral next time around because social media doesn’t thrive off folks who are happy or content. Neither does mainstream news. Negativity gets comments, likes, groups, shares. Starting a group about how everyone likes vaccines because science doesn’t generate usage, telling people how vaccines are a conspiracy does. And social media loves engagement. Divisiveness. The bigger the better.

This is how Trump’s fringe rode the wave. But that same wave is about to cycle back through; it does not benefit anyone in power who is trying to say everything is fine. You can already see the news media (pretty much silent throughout the campaigns start up the doom-and-gloom stories that get the most views) ramping up on Trump. He might have two years his worst before losing key seats in congress.

Which isn’t great news. He’s a dangerous unstable clown.

I guess the point is, rest easy, for social media put us here, and social media will get us out of it. And then back again. In the meantime, going to minimize social media/news consumption and focus on living the best I can.