Election Ads Breed Apathy and Ignorance

(This article was submitted by Aquinas College student Joe Spaulding)

Post-structuralist philosopher Michael Foucault talked about how what he called the “repressive hypothesis” – the idea that the nature of power is purely repressive, and individuals can empower themselves by fighting whomever is in charge.

His book The History of Sexuality Vol. 1 was specific to government and individual power over sex, but he uses that specific example to show that the repressive hypothesis is pretty terrible at accurately describing the nature of power relations. He also argues that the public’s acceptance of the repressive hypothesis as a true concept, can be used to further control them. Because people think they have the ability to resist, they are actually easier to control.

During the over-bloated onslaught of inescapable campaign ads, the American public is set to fall victim to the perilous political trappings of the repressive hypothesis once again. There are a few reasons for this, as well as a few implications, but the good news is, as long as people are mindful and observant, they should be able to help keep real democracy alive in America.

Most people know campaign ads should not be taken at face value, and politicians should not be taken at their word, especially when they are running for office. If a person is particularly partisan, they might see through what they perceive as the lies in the ads of the opposition, while meeting the candidate they favor half-way with claims that might be stretching the truth.

As shown by the growing dissatisfaction with the two major political parties as well as the two party system itself, most people aren’t decisively partisan. Not being blinded by ideology, most people can tell that the ads for candidates from both parties for every office worth running ads for are filled with both boastful and insulting lies.

The truth is so blatantly distorted in political ads that it’s difficult not to immediately recognize the dishonesty and hypocrisy. People can watch an ad accusing candidates of caring more about workers in China than in the U.S., and they know that is not be true for virtually every person running for every office here. When someone like Republican candidate for governor Rick Snyder claims he “created thousands of jobs” in his ads, most people know he wasn’t personally and solely responsible for those thousands. If the politicians in the ads didn’t get to hold an office of power after the election, these ads would simply be a rhetorical spitting contest not far from the dozens.

Why do lies matter if everyone can see through them? Because recognizing a lie makes a person feel satisfied and intelligent, and individuals that are those things are less likely to suspect they are able to be deceived This, rationally enough, makes them much easier to deceive The nature of this particular deception is one of masking. The thinly veiled lies in political ads create the illusion that the differences between Democratic and Republican candidates are vast enough to distort the truth over. They provide the framework necessary to convince masses of voters that the only standard that matters in the ballot box is selecting the lesser of two evils.

Make no mistake, if Pat Miles and Justin Amash, or Rick Snyder and Virg Bernero were so different, they wouldn’t need to spend millions of dollars trying to convince you those differences are real between 30 Rock and The Office or during the 7^th inning stretch of the National League Championship Series final game.

The other aspect of campaign ads that has deeper impacts than the ones that are initially obvious is their pervasiveness. Billboards can be seen on the way to work, radio ads can be heard on the same trip or on the job site itself, online ads are visible at home and work as well, and television ads are as common as televisions themselves. This provides a huge psychological disincentive to researching candidates on an individual’s own time. Why would people want to spend the precious few moments they have out of earshot and line-of-sight of political ads looking up politicians’ positions? When individuals have this sentiment, and it is combined with the idea that they have seen through the obvious lies in ads, they end up dually deceived. They think they understand the candidates well and are extremely disinclined to check if their understanding is less than accurate. Political ads simultaneously breed ignorance and the acceptance of ignorance.

The pervasiveness and thinly masked deception that come with the political ad season will once again have the effect of pacifying the American public into accepting the two party system, and keeping them further alienated from their government. The traditional media will continue to do little more than report on which candidate’s tidal wave of airtime is having the best effect in the polls. At the very least, unstoppable ads will convince many that they only have two options at the ballot box; this undemocratically disempowers Libertarian, Socialist, Green, and other parties’ candidates and their supporters.

There are structural barriers to overcoming this desecration of democracy, like our winner-take-all/non-proportional representation elections, but they have no chance of being overcome until individual citizens take it upon themselves to put up with the garbage of political ads, and do the research themselves.

The real-time access to information the internet provides gives people today the tools to better understand who is being elected to govern them. People need to not be content that they saw through an obvious lie on a prime-time 30 second spot. They need to dig deeper to see what candidates’ positions really are, but they also need to vote their conscience. The old “I don’t know anything about this third party candidate’s policies because the have no ads” excuse doesn’t fly in the online age.

Traditional partisan politics has resulted in watering down bills that the public needed to be robust, fights over cutting taxes for those that need it least, and inaction at times when action was necessary. Obviously, and importantly, people, once they have informed themselves, need to vote. Things probably won’t change a great deal with a single election, but change will become evident in every new election over time. As long as people continue to put in the effort despite disincentives, we can make both Michigan and America more democratic.