Op-Ed: Pre-Election Red Flags
By Jessica Wise
As we get closer to one of America’s more…interesting Election Days, voter suppression is worsening and extreme political ads are running back to back. Everything is looking scarier. Everything is a headline.
These are last ditch efforts.
No matter who you’re voting for, no matter what office, everyone is pleading their final case to get your vote. And some politicians will do or say just about anything to anything to get it.
Remain vigilant of the following. These are ploys to sway the undecided and the miseducated:
“Scandals.” Any sudden revelation about a candidate that comes out just weeks before an election is typically untrue, exaggerated, or irrelevant. These scandals alleging cavorting with enemies, killing babies, and poor decisions while serving in a past offices tend to be leaked by competing parties or interest groups. If you never hear about it again after the election is over, it was a distraction.
Hot Button Words. These are classic scare tactic attempts. Political ads love using words that get people going, with or without context. “Taxes,” “Communist,” “our troops,” “riots,” “your rights,” etc. automatically draw an emotional reaction from people. It plays on the emotions that arise from the very mention of these terms and (if one is not careful) can be all a person hears, because now they’re riled up. This is very dangerous. Hot button words used out of context (and paired with video clips and audio that are also out of context) build a rhetoric that can demonize political candidates to the miseducated voter. To put it plainly, it’s a mind-f**k, designed as propaganda to keep voters from thinking and analyzing for themselves.
Social Media. I know. I’m saying this as I write an op-ed, but hear me out. With social media becoming a major source of news for voters, and platforms doing little to quell the spread of false information, it’s easy to paint a misconstrued picture of what this election truly looks like. We saw this in 2016 with the dragging of Hillary Clinton, the incorrect assumption that third party candidates could “save” the election, and the failure to take Trump and his following seriously. This is a perfect recipe for splitting parties and landing us with a situation where no one will be happy. Leave social media for debates, not decisions.
Unsportsmanlike Behavior. We learned to avoid this in kindergarten. Unfortunately, not everyone got that lesson and decided to run for political office or be on television anyway. It will show as we get closer to Election Day. Beware of candidates, journalists, and entertainers who like to take things to the gutter. This behavior shows itself in a number of ways: refusing to follow or enforce rules in political debates, presenting news in a biased and subjective manner, going below the belt in conversations or debates with topics that have nothing to do with the subject at hand, deflecting instead of answering legitimate questions, and more. Sure, politics have been and always will be dirty. But anyone who resorts to unnecessary mudslinging, instead of letting their platforms speak for themselves, likely doesn’t have much to offer voters.
So now what? Don’t be deterred. We see it, we know it, and now we have to fight it. You have more power than you know. If you didn’t, the tactics above would be obsolete.
Happy voting!
Got more red flags? Comment and help us spread the word!
