After every terrible election result we get 100s of pieces telling us exactly why this happened. But the supposed reasons are all different & conflicting. Below I argue we should take a leaf out of the UK's Home Intelligence WW2 project, where they fought propaganda & tracked "the vibes" to keep everyone on board with the war effort. We only have a few elections left to get to grips with populism, so we should stop the amateur hour sleuthing & figure things out:
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/we-dont-know-why-people-are-voting-like-that/

@bert_hubert
We are already tracked and analyzed thoroughly by many parties for reasons of marketing. And marketing influencing appears to work; much money in it. Competition between parties drives up the cost.

We are marketed to not to make us wiser and nicer but to get our money. Perhaps even if we were analyzed and marketed to for more beneficial reasons it would not be able to compete.

Is increased understanding of vibes the key to fixing the systemic issues?

@bert_hubert What I really like is the taking of a step back and asking 'how can we figure out what is actually the problem', rather than going straight for the punditry. I don't have the answer, but this is the right question to ask, and keep asking. And I think you are right that secret services are the kind of institution best placed for being tasked with producing that answer.

@bert_hubert In my opinion, people generally do not act objectively but subjectively. As you wrote, based on gut feeling. Subjective decisions cannot really be influenced or explained by rational objective arguments, I think. In Germany there is always a "Wahl-O-Mat" that summarizes arguments objectively and weighted to form a voting recommendation. I still vote differently.

@bert_hubert After reflection, one more comment. The question most of the linked articles try to answer is 'how did Trump [or Brexit] get from 49% to 52%?' when the interesting question is 'how did he get close to 50% in the first place?'
Historically, in somewhat functional democracies overtly authoritarian/racist/fascist parties gain some 20-30% of the vote. This is manageable: the non-authoritarian parties should band together and create a 'cordon sanitaire'. /1

@bert_hubert 20-30% of the voters corresponds to the share of the 'authoritarian personality' in the population.
So where did the other 20-30% come from? Remember that these are voters that would not knowingly vote for an authoritarian. So what made them do it?
My gut feeling is that your gut feeling that it is about the information environment is spot on. And there is a legitimate defence task for something resembling a security service there. But how to set that up, and by who? /2 /end

@bert_hubert sorry for this lazy question as my brain is fried right now and I want to come back to this later. I was reading an article in Rolling Stone recently that mentioned that this was the first time that all incumbents lost in major elections around the world. Maybe that’s oversimplifying, but I found that super interesting and a bit more telling. I’m just trying to working out if it actually means anything or not. Thoughts? https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-americans-vote-plutocrats-taxes-1235161296/

@tgerz I also don't know. Some of the 31 articles linked make this same point. The Financial Times also noted that all incumbents lost. Does does jive a bit with outsiders having an easier time getting elected since they only have to say things are terrible. But I also do not have the answers.

@bert_hubert 😂 I read the quoted summary of _The Unaccountability Machine_ in the footnotes, thought, "that's a really good summary, I will read the whole thing," clicked through, and found my post 🤦‍♀️

https://wandering.shop/@vaurora/112626226847945336

@vaurora this happens a lot to me, most recently in a policy paper from the municipality of Amsterdam, https://amsterdam.raadsinformatie.nl/document/14694106/1 - somewhat proud about that ;-)

@vaurora @bert_hubert Thank you for this summary! I like how this is a systems thinking approach to what appears to be a systemic issue. Ideas on how to improve the system are badly needed; I'm still struggling at the "okay so it's broken" stage myself.

@bert_hubert how well do Dutch institutions (CPB, CBS, SCP, etc) and Eurostat fill the role of 'social thermometer' in your estimation?
From a distance it seems these orgs have a good understanding of what is going on, but are not taken seriously by politicians. Especially since alt-right politics means cherry picking vibes.

Politicians now skew more unethical/extreme than their voting base, which is an underlying concern. The avg. Trump voter may have done so with disgust, not delight.

@oddly so you can do a lot with numbers, but it only goes so far. De Correspondent article (linked in the page) shows what you can do with numbers, but the causation and correlation are difficult to establish.

@martinvermeer @bert_hubert one (obvious!) thing to check is whether Trump got (a significant number of) people who aren't authoritarian to vote for him.

About 30% of the electorate voted for him in 2024; a larger share of the electorate voted for him in 2020 when he lost.

You might not need to find people who voted for Trump but are not OK with authoritarianism.

@RAOF @bert_hubert So you're saying he didn't lose to democracy, but to the sofa. That would assume that Trump voters have a near-100% turnout discipline - a bold claim. Hmm.

@martinvermeer @bert_hubert I'm not making a positive claim that 100% of authoritarians voted for Trump.

I'm making a much weaker claim - that “why are 20-30% of the voting population not-authoritarian but fine with Trump” is not necessarily the right question. Before you spend too much time wondering about that, make sure that the premise is correct.

It also might suggest a different question - why are 40% of the electorate not voting against authoritarianism? (There will be lots of answers!)

@martinvermeer @bert_hubert I will make the positive claim that there was a campaign to depress Democratic turnout, both one immediate and specific to this election and a decade-long, demonstrably successful one.

It would be surprising to me if authoritarians were not overrepresented in active voters. How much is an empirical question I do not have data for.

@RAOF @bert_hubert Oh yes. Harris's turnout was some 10% lower than Biden's in 2020, part of which was undoubtedly that. And yes, it falls under 'information environment'. But while that can help explain a shift of type 49% to 51%, it cannot on its own explain the ~50% conundrum, which requires much more, at least 20%.

@bert_hubert thank you for tackling the topic, Bert. I always appreciate your thought out and well-sourced essays.

I hope I have not misread or misunderstood your point, but I believe your question is rooted in the assumption "that truth is manifest – that it cannot be missed once the powers which are interested in its suppression and perversion are destroyed," as Karl Popper phrased it. Although popular, it's a questionable assumption. Popper again: "This important and influential idea – that truth is manifest – is one from of optimism which I cannot support. I am convinced that it is mistaken, and that, on the contrary, truth is hard, and often painful, to come by."

Would your thinking on this topic change if you removed the assumption that truth is manifest?

@againsthimself no, I don't think there is a single truth. However, I do think you can come to a useful understanding of things that offers you opportunities to deal better with the world. Even if we haven't found "the" truth. It is more dynamic situation of observing and understanding.