Last night, the first official “face-off” between Republican Donald Trump and Democratic Joe Biden in the traditional Presidential Debate took place. I do not recommend someone watching it as naming it a debate would be a compliment. As Green (2020) would describe it: “What might possibly have been an interesting and even educational exchange turned out to be a distressing and largely unwatchable pissing contest.” With an overload of insults, lies and shallow comments, the two presidential candidates who will have the task of running this immense country seemed more like two children fighting over toys. As entertaining as this may be, it also makes me wary, as this is what campaigning in the US is mostly about right now, throwing dirt at each other to improve their own position at the voters.
Currently, political polarization is growing. This becomes evident by the statistics found by Gilberstadt (2020). This may be due to the fact that one candidate is better at insulting than the other candidate is, however, there is a tool that stimulates this growth in polarization. Online users are prone to searching information that aligns with their beliefs, forming and joining groups that have the same values and perspectives on matters, e.g. echo chambers. Algorithms on social media stimulate this process by promoting content based on user preferences, limiting information that might oppose the users’ beliefs. Bessi A, Zollo F, Del Vicario M, Puliga M, Scala A, Caldarelli G, et al. (2016)
To illustrate this, a Democratic political video appeared on my Facebook that, you guessed it, threw dirt at Trump. Kind of amused since I’m not a huge Trump fan I watched it and moved on. Then to my surprise, over the next weeks, I got overloaded with Democratic videos about why Trump slacks as a president, stimulating an even more one-sided perspective on Trump. The most worrying aspect of this process to me was that aside from me disliking Trump even more, I favored Biden more to be the next president, without knowledge of any of his plans!
Now imagine living in the US where there is a clear division in population and what party they support. This political preference is increasingly more based around videos that illustrate why one candidate is unfit to rule. So, what happens if voters are prone to vote for a candidate based on how good they are at insulting the other party? The result of this trend was never so obvious, just take a look at the presidential debate of last night. This trend is worrying and simultaneously saddening to witness. Now I don’t know what steps are necessary to take, but I do believe social media platforms need to address the issue of echo chambers. Provide voters with information from opposing sides as well as this would slow down the trend of “voting for the better insulter” and perhaps the political debate will be made less superficial as it is now!
Bessi A, Zollo F, Del Vicario M, Puliga M, Scala A, Caldarelli G, et al. (2016) Users Polarization on Facebook and Youtube. PLoS ONE 11(8): e0159641. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159641
Gilberstadt, H. (2020, September 10). Voters’ Attitudes About Race and Gender Are Even More Divided Than in 2016. Retrieved September 30, 2020, from https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/09/10/voters-attitudes-about-race-and-gender-are-even-more-divided-than-in-2016/
Green, L. (2020, September 30). Trump v Biden in the first 2020 presidential debate: our panelists’ verdict. Retrieved September 30, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/29/first-2020-presidential-debate-our-panelists-verdict
Intersting article!
First, I would like to add to the polarization of politics. In terms of increased divide between USA and Western Europe, the American public experienced positive trends in “affective polarization” over the last decades (Klein, 2020). This implies that party affiliation became more important and generates an affective response from individuals. America is an outlier given that Western European countries like Germany experience a decrease in affective polarization after the higher penetration of internet and digital technologies. Curiously, Klein (2020) also remarks that the post 1990’s increased polarization in US politics coincides with the introduction of Fox News. Therefore, mass media still can influence public opinions, especially in a country where people still watch a lot of traditional TV channels.
The externalities of US party-line polarization also include a lower trust from the Congress to delegate work and authority to administrative agencies that have a differently leaning political affiliation (Barber & McCarthy, 2013). Therefore, the Congress relies increasingly less on external expertise of the “bureaucracy” to implement statuses, hence decreasing the overall quality of policy formulation and losing power to administrative institutions and the judiciary (Barber & McCarthy, 2013, p. 43-45). These divided public institutions have less coordination of policy and activities, hence leading to less scientifically accurate responses to public issues and crises: very visible as of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Though, if looking in more depth, the bigger, fundamental issue about US politics is the shift to right on the political spectrum over the last three decades (Chomsky, 2015). The GOP (i.e. Republican Party) especially, is utilizing the internet and mass media to attract what are called “priorly not mobilized” parts of the population, such as very religious groups such as southern evangelicals (Chomsky, 2015). This allows them to alter the majority opinions of polls in multiple states.
The companies that extract revenues from the fragmentation of American society and the lack of regulation on privacy, data sharing, data collection and ads targeting spend increasingly large amounts on US Congress lobbying (Dellinger, 2019). This is to make sure the US does not get any legislation even close to the EU’s GDPR. Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google spent over half a billion dollars from 2005 to 2018 making sure the lobbyists keep their interest above any rights or demands of the American citizens ((Dellinger, 2019).
Maybe this is the problem even more than the Trump persona and the whole fallout of decency in US politics? Because fact-checking, scientific research and expert opinions are ignored by design and not accident, I reckon that the digital environment (including the Facebook, Twitter ecosystem and eco-chamber) will most likely continue to exert disproportionate influence in the coming years on the opinions of millions.
References:
Barber, M., & McCarthy, N. (2013). Negotiating Agreements in Politics (pp. 19-53). Washington: American Political Science Association.
Chomsky, N. (2015). The Empire’s Election Extravaganza [Video]. Retrieved 2 October 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUc8ukdVtMs&feature=emb_logo
Dellinger, A. (2019). How The Biggest Tech Companies Spent Half A Billion Dollars Lobbying Congress. Retrieved 2 October 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajdellinger/2019/04/30/how-the-biggest-tech-companies-spent-half-a-billion-dollars-lobbying-congress/
Klein, E. (2020). What polarization data from 9 countries reveals about the US. Retrieved 1 October 2020, from https://www.vox.com/2020/1/24/21076232/polarization-america-international-party-political