Forwarded Political Emails

[bobingersoll]

For the past 4+ years (beginning around the time that Obama was nominated as the Democratic candidate), my email inbox has been inundated with political emails from family and friends that they forwarded to me. I am going to do my best not to exaggerate, but I would guess about anywhere from 2-3 a week to 2-3 a day at times. And the honest truth...not a single one was or is anti-republican. Every single one has been anti-Obama. And another honest truth...probably 95%-99% have been either completely false (a lie, a myth, a fabrication) or mostly false.

Many of these have come from my father, middle aged retired military who has voted democratic until the 2008 election. I used to respond to his forwarded emails by simply adding links that showed them to be false. He would just forward the next batch to me when they go to him.

I guess my question is - what kind of person forwards lies over and over again, never checking to see if they are lies? My father is one of the smartest most generous people I know. I have several other friends, some religious, some not, some rich, some not, that do the same thing.

[Mindlessfollower]

Welcome to America, in the information age. It seems that information simply means, “What that guy said.�

No one looks into things; they just follow the advice of whatever political evangelist they are worshiping at that time. I have heard good points come from the Huffington Post and good points come from The Blaze. I have heard insightful comments from Rush Limbaugh and informational data supplied by Soledad O’brien. Can we trust all of them? Nope. Despite some sound facts that come from both sides there is a lot of spin thrown in. Glenn Beck and Chris Matthews have a biased that is far beyond invested interests. Because of this the words they speak are best taken with a lot of salt. Sean Hannity and Bill O’Riley have many absolute facts that they can supply at a moments notice. Does that imply they are above suspect? Nope. Not hardly. Can we trust the non humorous facts handed out by John Stewart? Doubtful.

But Guess what? Most voters have either had their minds made up by false or misleading attack ads and the opinions of media personality types. The sad point? I can find a dozen websites that lay a seemingly factual expose on the Obama Birth Certificate. I can also produce a dozen more that claim to verify the opposite point.

In the end we go with our guts as we are little more than sheep. The fact the people can look you in the eye and claim that a president like Bush or Obama is anything more than a charlatan and a liar is all the proof I need of America’s dumbed down condition.

[dusk]

People today just care more about soundbites than about actual content. It has to fit into a twitter message to make noise everything else just, stuff like reason, reasonable debate disappears in the mass.
Nobody tries or even wants to understand actual topics. Just look at what kind of newspapers sell. The quality ones with long detailed well researched articles are a dying breed or have a fairly small reader base. The shorter the articles, the more pictures, the more nonsense, the catchier the headlines, the less thinking or work a tabloid requires from the reader the more people read it.

From the type of media some people consume their vote should count like 1/10 because you can not make an educated, well advised vote while consuming all this biased, shredded soundbites. I don't remember who said it but "All people and nations get the representatives they deserve."

Real journalism is just not valued anymore. Why can someone like Ryan get away with saying the Math of his economic plan is to complicated to explain in a short interview? Yes sure but the next question should be why is there no detail available online which does explain the complicated stuff to those interested, or to journalists who could then take the time and explain it to everyone else, in a proper article?
Instead what some random republican says about rape gets all the attention, however little sense it makes. But it fits into a short sentence, is catchy and possibly relevant to swing voters.

Europe is still better because there is not quite as much theater in the entire election process, nor does it last as long. Otherwise it is the same. The stupid stuff gets attention, actual well thought out plans with lots of detail are largely ignored, because one cannot communicate them well enough in a compressed way.

[Jax Agnesson]

As well as the shortening time-windows for media items, related to the shortening attention spans of newer generations, I suspect that part of this sound-bite effect is a result of the increasing role of marketing people in political campaigning.
Advertisers know how to market products.
Since the 1970's, with Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the States, ISTM that market research techniques have forced political parties to face up to the realities of populism.
In the UK, there used to be a party of the left (Labour) and a party of the right (Conservative). Love em or hate em, you knew, to some extent, where politicians stood. And there was also a fairly small and mostly harmless party of the middle (Liberal).
In the US it always looked (from this side of the pond) as though you had just two parties, both very pro-capitalist, but with some clear points of principled difference discernible between them, roughly analogous to our left and right distinction.

What the close involvement of commercial marketeers taught the campaigners was this:
Don't waste time or money talking to people who don't already agree with you; you may convince a few, but the return on investment is not likely to be great.
And don't worry too much about your own supporters; they'll either vote for you whatever you do, or at worst abstain.
Concentrate on the swing voters. Ask them lots of questions. Promise them what you can without alienating your base too much.
In other words, don't have any political principles. Just spout enough party-line rhetoric to win the party leadership, in the UK case, or the nomination, in the US case. And then concentrate on winning.
So now the US has the choice of two near-identical parties, with some relatively small points, largely rhetorical and in any case trivial, to distinguish them. And the UK has three virtually identical middle of the road pro-business parties with hardly an ounce of political principle separating them.
So the media can treat it all as an issue-free gossip fest, and the people can either argue over matters of principle that their politicians are never going to take any notice of, or else shrug their shoulders and watch Big Brother or Somebody's got talent.
Politics. Remember when we used to have politics?

[chris_brown207]

I almost laughed when I saw this OP. I guess it must be a common occurence, seeing as how I get those all the time from family members also.

I try not to laugh when my mom tells me about these emails in her worried mom voice, as I try to point out some inaccuracies.

However, I think many people are comforted by these kinds of newsy tall tales - it is the political equivalent of the Jerry Springer show... comforting because it turns all of life's complex issues into black and white, good and evil, wrong versus right simplicities.

They have a certain appeal, and the people who forward them most times are just not interested in hearing any counter arguments, just as many Springer and WWE fans were not interested to learn that most of what they see is staged. They are happy with the entertainment value, and the reinforcement of their preconceived perceptions. Thus the popularity of the loud, obnoxious news commentator who allow no counter points to be made on their show, and habitually override anything that comes close to straying from their tightly woven talking points. There have been a number of times I have gotten into discussions with the same family who forward these emails, only to be over-talked in similar ways when I have tried to present alternative possibilities.

It did not surprise me in the least that there were so many people shocked at the results of the previous election, especially when the one guy who had got it exactly right had also been the one who had been consistently derided by some of these commentators as being "biased," a "liberal parrot," an "ideologue,"and even "too effeminate".... never mind that he had predicted 49 of 50 states dead on accurate during the previous election.

After all, the message that has been consistently repeated is anything that doesn't echo the info that they get through their channels has obviously been spun by "the media".

[Untraveled Trail]

Change the color of Obama's skin to be caucasian/white and about two thirds of the hatred goes away. I've received the emails since he became a serious candidate and the over-arching connection to every "secret" or "conspiring" idea of his "socialist/communist/Marxist/Nazi/secret Muslim out to purposely destroy America" agenda is... he has the wrong color of skin.

The man has different ideas/agenda on running the country than his predecessor... go figure. He's from a different political party, I'd expect there to be some differences... unfortunately there aren't as many as I'd prefer. The previous administration was nothing short of an absolute disaster. Would we really want to continue on that path?