Hard Pass/Ignore or engage/Discuss?

[Lark]

Thinking less in terms of everyday people you may encounter, even people you may encounter on online discussion forums, and instead thinking about actual politicians, what do you think about the choice between giving them a "Hard Pass" or "Ignore", effectively shunning them anyway that you can, as opposed to "engaging" or "discussing" with them?

I was talking to someone lately about this, they where talking about the old idea of "dont vote, it only encourages them" simply was not sufficient to communicate to politicians any longer, in the hypermedia if you dont vote for a politician but DO follow their social media accounts, TV interviews, media appearances, news columns etc. etc. then you are giving them exactly what they want, your attention, your time and this translates into network bookings, interviews, air time etc.

The individual I was speaking to was talking about how, to them at least (and I am more than half convinced they had a point) politics had descended to a kind of "attention whoring", following patterns in online behaviour or a TV show which had "jumped the shark", just one long string of stunts and amusements as part of a "public management" function. They thought that the drawn out negotiations of post-brexit trading terms with the EU is one example of this attempt to "manufacture" a narrative, agreeing the deal for Christmas day? Seriously? Its like the old "spin doctoring" or "media strategies" of Clinton-Blair on absolute steroids, although in part, possibly the greater part, because of the needs or wishes of the politicians themselves rather than an engineering strategy, if that makes sense.

As a result the idea of an increasingly large body of people who very deliberately choose to "tune them out" could make sense.

On the other hand, I wonder if this could turn out to be a missed opportunity, I do think social media and online media can turn toxic very quickly but its pretty much unprecedented the amount of actual access or contact it could be possible to have with elected representatives these days.

It is sometimes obvious from interviews that the politicians use consultants, teams of subordinates, editors or others, the media accounts are not them, just as a lot of those of supposed "celebrities" or "stars" are not those people themselves either. I'm not naive about that. What do you think? And would you, as I do, draw a line between "regular people" or "average individual" and those involved in politics as a career?

 

[Z Buck McFate]

As a result the idea of an increasingly large body of people who very deliberately choose to "tune them out" could make sense.

I think this would be effective, because narcissists who thrive on pure attention can't bear feeling irrelevant (it's too painful for them to even recognize, they'd shrink away from public attention without even realizing they're doing it), but it's a practically impossible task to accomplish with an entire population of people. Even if the most popular media platforms could organize some kind of news black-out about the person, the smaller media platforms would rush in to cover them for the money it'd generate.

An experience far more painful than losing the election - to Trump (and therefore, something that would make him stop his douchey, autocratic attack on this country) - would be for his social media accounts to drop to almost zero, and if no one cares enough to even cover the story that it happened. But there's no way to organize/coordinate this kind of action even amongst those who hate him and want him to disappear.

 

[ceecee]

I agree completely with tuning out people but on a large scale, it can't happen, not in the US anyway. But deplatforming works, absolutely (ask Milo Yiannopoulos). They cry about their free speech while getting the NY Times and WSJ to publish their shit opinion pieces and how flagging disinformation leads to communism...

If Twitter banned Trump, I'd lobby Biden to give Twitter Jack a presidential medal - that's how much good it would do for the country overall. Unfortunately, MSM has neither the spine nor the capacity to ignore Trump for even a day and give up any of their clicks or $$ and take even a tiny amount of responsibility for their part in this entire fiasco.

 

[Lark]

I think this would be effective, because narcissists who thrive on pure attention can't bear feeling irrelevant (it's too painful for them to even recognize, they'd shrink away from public attention without even realizing they're doing it), but it's a practically impossible task to accomplish with an entire population of people. Even if the most popular media platforms could organize some kind of news black-out about the person, the smaller media platforms would rush in to cover them for the money it'd generate.

An experience far more painful than losing the election - to Trump (and therefore, something that would make him stop his douchey, autocratic attack on this country) - would be for his social media accounts to drop to almost zero, and if no one cares enough to even cover the story that it happened. But there's no way to organize/coordinate this kind of action even amongst those who hate him and want him to disappear.

Yeah, that's the idea, its not restricted to Trump by and stretch of the imagination, the context I was discussing it in was not actually related to Trump although it is one of the more obvious examples. I do think that the in democracies with media like the west has shady privileged types will always sponsor stooges like Trump, making public office as unappealing to those types as it once was sounds like a good idea.

I agree its unlikely to be easy to organize, for the reasons you mention, plus the money angle is really a big deal these days, its why I think a lot of truly awful things are trending constantly, the money.

Still, its something really worth considering I think.

 

[Lark]

I agree completely with tuning out people but on a large scale, it can't happen, not in the US anyway. But deplatforming works, absolutely (ask Milo Yiannopoulos). They cry about their free speech while getting the NY Times and WSJ to publish their shit opinion pieces and how flagging disinformation leads to communism...

If Twitter banned Trump, I'd lobby Biden to give Twitter Jack a presidential medal - that's how much good it would do for the country overall. Unfortunately, MSM has neither the spine nor the capacity to ignore Trump for even a day and give up any of their clicks or $$ and take even a tiny amount of responsibility for their part in this entire fiasco.

I dont think people should give these people a platform for all the reasons that it'd be likely get labelled as "cancel culture".

Its got more to do with just how much attention whoring has become a strong motivation for the right wing.

Next to the right wing's victim culture, the very thing they claim the left is doing, its one of the things I hate the most.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I really hope Twitter does ban Trump, as soon as they can.

I read an interesting piece recently on the difference between "cancelling" (a la cancel culture) and simply acknowledging there are natural consequences for unacceptable behavior, but I can't remember where. It's really pathetic how Trump (et al) can avoid natural consequences for his behavior by tapping into public outrage about "cancelling" (by labeling all unwanted consequences as "cancelling"). I get routinely annoyed about "cancelling" too, but there really is a distinct difference that needs to be more widely understood before it's too ingrained a trigger. eta: I mean, it's already problematically ingrained, Trump is already avoiding *a shitstorm* of negative consequences under the guise of fighting "cancelling" - arguably it's why the impeachment didn't take - but there needs to be more focus on this difference to stop the nebulous confusion from continuing to spin out of control. /eta

Yeah, that's the idea, its not restricted to Trump by and stretch of the imagination, the context I was discussing it in was not actually related to Trump although it is one of the more obvious examples.

I was focusing on Trump (or Trumps, plural, since I believe this applies to all of them), but I imagined it was implied I was using him as a specific example of the more general problem you describe. It even seems to fit Trudeau, the more I hear about him.

 

[Maou]

I listen to everyone, and I take many matters into account. I prefer to hear everyone, and understand their positions. Even if I disagree with their positions, I desire to know where they come from. From this, I draw conclusions of the best actions to address all issues under the scope, and seek to help as many as I can. But sometimes the "help" people seek, depends on culture and what they value. You can provide food, and teach discipline. It doesn't mean a group of people value it. That is where the problems begin.