It’s easy to confuse volume with mass in politics. Our inboxes, social media feeds, news shows … everything is set to maximum screech. All of which seems designed to separate citizens from reality.
Not long ago, a friend wrote to ask about a particular candidate in a specific race. She explained she was receiving multiple emails every day from the candidate about the strength of the campaign. She told me her social media timeline was flooded with references to the alleged contender. Polls she had never heard of, from organizations she did not follow, constantly told her this candidate was cruising to an easy victory.
So she was surprised by how little traction the candidate had among her neighbors, work colleagues, and church friends. She saw hardly any yard signs. No one talked about the candidate in her comings and goings. The online world bore little resemblance to the real world.
The flood of emails, tweets, and posts she saw every day didn’t match what was happening in the real world. She wanted to know why.
Here’s a way to think of it. A tiny Bluetooth speaker from the corner store can make a lot of ear-splitting noise; a platoon of disciplined soldiers standing in the room can be physically imposing but silent. Volume and mass.
Now, in the physics of politics, volume can create mass … If a candidate or the leaders of a cause all run around long enough in circles and make a lot of noise, people will sometimes join in and thereby draw in even more. Sometimes, but not always. Sometimes, they just run around in an exhausting circle.
Depending on your perspective, a campaign is either trying to convert political volume into a mass of support through its messaging … Or, it is using the volume of messaging to conceal a lack of real-world commitments.
Frankly, it is often both.
Either way, citizens should be wary of politicians whose sycophants run around in circles yelling and screaming their praises. With bots and click farms, such self-serving endeavors have never been easier or more fake, so we as voters must be more sophisticated than ever at separating the political wheat from the chaff.
We must keep our eyes on the real world, not algorithmically created narratives. Even as frenzied posts from fanboys push an obnoxious candidate and spout odious ideas, amplified by the news feeds of legacy media outlets, we should take a moment to consider their objective. They want you to disbelieve the evidence before your own eyes.
In fact, your real-world experience trumps the wishful thinking of loud partisans running around in circles. Don’t be discouraged by their noise; focus on achieving results.
As discerning citizens, we must turn down the volume of the self-serving babblers. Let us redouble our focus on achieving the “mass” of good ideas that will improve life in the real world.
