'Tis the season for complaints about the endless barrage of political ads that treat us like we are a bunch of rubes easily influenced by lies, exagerrations, bombast, and personal attacks.
Of course the problem is that these ads are so common because they usually work.
Our inability or unwillingness to pay much attention to civics, to our obligations as citizens, means that we are influenced by relatively small amounts of information. That is why televised debates and advertisements are so important. Most of us don't get much information otherwise.
Therefore candidates are often rewarded for appearing to be in command and assertive, even if they are spouting a bunch of nonsense. They are banking on the fact that only a small sliver of viewers will read the fact-checkers' articles the next day. Likewise, advertisements so often play to the more shallow side of human nature (fear and envy, for example), because in the absence of knowledge we tend to vote with "our gut."
The power of this sort of advertising means that the candidate able to buy up the most advertising has a huge advantage. This advantage would be greatly reduced--and the level of political discourse greatly elevated--if all of us spent half as much time educating ourselves about politics as we do watching sit-coms.
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