What false assumptions mean for politics

The thing about politics is that it affects all of us. Because we all have a stake in the outcome but not a stake in the day to day decision-making process, we all talk about it. Pundits make an entire career out of commenting on politics, often as if it were a football game. But there's an entire generation of people growing up with the Internet that have a big voice outside of their living room to talk about politics as well. That includes bloggers, social media and everything in between.

The Atlantic did a great piece where they looked at the five assumptions that pundits make all the time about politics that are false. I thought I'd look at how those assumptions manifest all over the Internet and affect the way we all talk about politics, both "at" and with each other.

Here are the 5 truths behind the assumptions and how I think they play out on the Internet:

1. "The electorate is not 'polarizing.' It's 'sorting.'"

This is a little semantic, but a good point. They are saying that voters would be "polarizing" if we were all getting more extreme. In fact, the numbers show that people are not, and instead we are all just solidifying our views and the center is shrinking. People are setting up camp in their ideologies. 

On the Internet it certainly feels more like polarizing. But I think that's a function of who uses the Internet and why. People who are active on social media and blogs are people who have something to say and are motivated to put it in writing, get argued with and stick to their message. Those who do that are often a little more extreme in their views. If they weren't, they probably wouldn't be motivated to talk about them.

2. "Candidates change more than voters do."

The point here is that while pundits tend to see a win for a certain candidate with a different view on a specific issue as a swing in voter opinion on that issue. The truth is that voters usually only have two choices and they have to pick a candidate, not the person who represents every single one of their views.

On the Internet, we are the voters, so we are the ones who are changing. But those who are on social media or blogging usually value consistency in branding or messaging higher than most politicians I see, so sticking to a set of views is probably even more common than it is with politicians. I see the Internet hold fast to a position and abandon a candidate much more than I see a shift in online views because of anything a candidate said.

3. "Independents aren't partisans."

Here the assumption pundits make is that those who call themselves "independent" are actually leaning one way or the other and usually vote that way. In a sense, the pundits are assuming that an "independent" is truly unbiased and without opinion and can be swayed either way. In politics that is seldom the case.

On the Internet I feel like the concepts of marketing and advertising have been internalized by everyone on a deep level. We have all come to understand on some level that certain topics, titles and photos will get a bigger response than others. For example, we all now know that cats are super-popular and that nobody really cares what you had for breakfast. And in talking about politics, we are usually talking to our friends over social media or a loyal audience on a blog, so we are less concerned about anyone being independent. And if they are, well, they can either agree or click away. I think the Internet assumes that everyone is partisan.

4. "'Division' is easy to overstate."

The assumption here that pundits make is that certain statistical differences that are really pretty small will have a huge impact on rhetoric and voting.

On the Internet, division is the name of the game for big political bloggers and most political social media posts.

5. "Campaign ads really, really, really don't make much difference."

Pundits assume that campaign ads don't make much difference and that people are making up their minds based on other things.

On the Internet, anyone with a purely political blog could tell you with absolute certainty that their ads work, and point to their mailing list and sales that come directly from them.

What do you all think about these assumptions?

Keyboard image courtesy of kalavinka via flickr

Pundit image courtesy of Madison Guy via flickr