“Voters are stupid. You can distract them with pure repetition; it’s like training a dog. There’s no law against paying social media users to spread partisan disinformation, so that’s what we did. It worked, so we aren’t ashamed of it. And Republicans are stupid too. They could have done the same thing, except there wasn’t a single word to describe all the awful positions and people we’re stuck with.”
Conservative site Legal Insurrection reacts to Jones’ revelation as if he had confessed to germ warfare, calling the network operation “manipulative, nefarious, and unscrupulous.”
Well aware that the party had nothing real to offer the American people, and desperate to escape the political wilderness they’d inhabited since November 2024, Democrats fabricated a lie and pounded it into voters’ minds ‘every single day.’ While both parties spend big to win the messaging war, there is something deeply cynical about inventing a narrative and then flooding social media with it until repetition does the work that evidence cannot.
Think about how advertisers capture our attention. We don’t have to study every advertisement or consciously weigh every claim. A slogan here, a familiar phrase there, a headline glimpsed while scrolling — repeated often enough, a message can begin to feel like something we already know. Familiarity can pass for credibility. Now apply that approach to political messaging on a massive and unprecedented scale. Voters didn’t have to read every post, watch every video, or even recognize that an overwhelming number of voices were all delivering the same centrally directed pitch. The message was everywhere, reinforcing itself with each new impression.
I view Jones’ claim as wildly exaggerated. The main carrier of the “affordability” message were the prices American encountered every day. Apathetic, ignorant and badly-educated Americans living in bubbles that reality seldom penetrate didn’t need to be brainwashed into thinking “affordability” was the big issue. Voters are short-sighted and selfish. “Hey, so what if Israel is vaporized at some point, this war makes me pay too much to drive—-not as much as I paid four years ago, but that was then and this is now.” Anyone who accepts the blathering on Facebook, X and Instagram as informed reporting is a civic disaster waiting to happen: I can’t blame the Democrats for taking advantage of these products of our education system.
How are lying social media posts worse than lying campaign ads, which we have been bombarded with by both parties from the dawn of time? How do social media obsessives often writing under fake names carry more weight with the public than the Axis pundits, academics, elected officials and reporters spreading the same message? Almost all of my progressive friends watch MSNow as if it were revealed truth.
Furthermore, I am increasingly convinced that blind, emotional, reflex Trump fatigue was the main reason for the extent of the “Blue Wave.” In 2016, I pronounced the upset victory by Trump the public’s equivalent of the Delta House-triggered parade riot at the climax of “Animal House”:
Voting demagogues, liars, incompetents, cheaters, racists, bigots and fools into Congress to express frustration with an annoying President who won’t shut up is a very futile and stupid gesture, much more so than electing a loose cannon outsider with no governing experience as President to tell both parties their credibility is shot.
Republicans had a strong message to deliver on many fronts, and botched it. Their leader was incapable of using his “bully pulpit” to do anything but preach to the choir. Democrats used social media well, but that was an obvious move and simple competence. Paying social media mouthpieces to spread talking points? Is that much different from paying people to distribute flyers? A blogger, website, celebrity or known authority who accepts money to spread someone else’s message is unethical: that is dishonest. Random social media users have no authority or inherent credibility. Nothing in social media ethics requires that users believe what they write. Posting for dollars? If that’s unethical, it’s an ethics misdemeanor at worst.
It is far more unethical to let your own judgment be influenced by a chorus of fools.
