Commentary: You’re not a political scientist (unless you actually are one)

Published 10:48 am Saturday, June 23, 2018

It’s an election year.

For most of us with social media accounts, that phrase alone is enough to send a shiver down our collective spines, or at the very least make us cringe.

An election year means that our feeds will be blown up with political posts, back-and-forth name-calling and endless, pointless political debates.

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I’m always amazed at how many of my friends suddenly become political scientists and constitutional scholars as we near elections.

Midterm election years are not quite as bad, though the recent situation along the southern border has many of my social media friends more fired up than normal. In the past month, not a day has gone by where I haven’t seen posts both supporting and opposing the government separating children from their families at the border. Usually it is from the same people, though others that normally don’t make political posts have weighed in on it.

And I get it. It’s controversial and, despite President Trump having issued an executive order to stop the practice, it’s not an issue that will go away anytime soon.

But, of course, there are those that take the social media political posting to a new level. For the past two weeks, two of my social media friends, one conservative, the other liberal, have been relentlessly posting on the other’s pages while making nasty comments to each other in an online shouting match that neither will win.

“Your constant political postings on social media have really made me reevaluate my beliefs and changed my mind,” said absolutely nobody ever.

But the political postings now are mild compared to presidential election years. Usually they start the year before, when candidates begin to announce their campaign. While the pack of candidates seems heavy in the beginning, it’s pretty clear who the top contenders are, and that position makes them ripe for social media. Both sides will decide who among the leading candidates on the other side is the worst and generally make them the main target, but the others are fair game too. Most posts are accusatory, usually along the lines of “this person believes this” or “that person voted for that” or “so-and-so was investigated for this,” and that’s okay. It’s important to know what a candidate stands for and what they’ve done in the past, so long as it’s true.

An then there’s this gem: “Such-and-such is Hitler!”

“Remember when such-and-such said this? Hitler said the same thing!”

“Such-and-such wants to do this. So did Hitler!”

“Everyone I don’t like is Hitler! Or Stalin! Or Mussolini! Or Mao Zedong! Or (insert murderous dictator name here)!”

I know there are rather divisive politicians out there (I won’t name any names, but two examples rhyme with “dump” and “sinton”), but I would hardly say they’re the equivalent of the perpetrators of mass genocide.

And then there are the memes. Many of them include a picture of a child, or Willy Wonka (Wilder, not Depp), smiling or making a face with a sarcastic quote railing against the political beliefs of the opposition. There are also those that state a “fact” that the poster may or may not have verified before sharing, but that doesn’t matter. It reaffirms what they’ve been arguing and that’s that!

One of my favorite examples came in 2010, just after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Many were angered by the provision of Congress exempting itself from the act and argued it was unconstitutional. They found their proof in a meme highlighting the 28th amendment to the Constitution, which states that Congress cannot exempt itself from any laws it passes. Like wildfire, the meme covered my feed as those who opposed the ACA shared their newly found proof. Congress had exempted itself in violation of the Constitution, meaning their actions and Obamacare were unconstitutional.

It’s perfectly logical… except there is no 28th amendment.

There was a time before social media where politics was only discussed with family and maybe a few close friends. People knew that discussing the subject in polite conversation was a poor decision, and to quote the “All in the Family” theme song, “Those were the days.”

The Internet has made us comfortable with saying and sharing whatever we want and, given the propensity we have to like social media pages that share are point of view, we often forget that people we call friends may not feel the same way. I’ve seen several friends, many who have known each other for years, suddenly part ways over social media posts. To me, that’s not worth it.

So to all social media users just remember, especially as we get closer to the general election in November, you’re not a political scientist (unless you really are one) and you don’t speak for everyone.

As Voltaire said, “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.”