this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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[–] peregrin5@piefed.social 3 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

i think they were given a big megaphone on platforms like TikTok or X by bad state actors like China, Russia, or Republican billionaires, and were used to sway a larger body that would have ultimately voted for Democrats to simply stay home and not vote because they were repeatedly pushed the idea that Democrats were "just as bad".

[–] AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space 5 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Hmm, maybe, it is always hard to prove an effect like that. Best one could do is exit polling with specific questions of what influenced the decision, and other polls in general. I was interested what polling was available there, most I found was just non-voters as a larger group, which seems to be predominately non-politically engaged and mostly centrist. One article I have found seems to indicate the non-voting Democrats don't really fit the narrative of being swayed by radical left influencers and agitprop either.

I am also unsure how visible those kind of influencers were on mainstream social media, as I am not active there at all. I always had the feeling they were mostly visible in their own bubbles and by people who got angry at them, thus also getting them served by the algorithms. Their effect on motivating people to stay home, I'd be genuinely interested in seeing in polling numbers, but I sadly could not find any polls with questions like "who influenced your decision to not vote".

In general, psychology-wise, I think motivating people to stay home that would have voted otherwise is I believe a much lower effect, than the failure in motivating people to get up and vote, who would have stayed home otherwise. Which was not the responsibility of those commie influencers the way I estimate it. However - I admit there may have been an effect: By inducing fatigue in activists that had to argue with them, taking away time and resources for trying to reach and motivate properly undecided non-voters.

[–] timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works 3 points 18 hours ago

We kind of take it for granted that right wing people are hugely influenced by bad faith "news" channels and right wing ~~jackasses~~ influencers.

Why couldn't people be moved to not vote along the same way? Especially by people claiming they're normal people and totally not people with ulterior motives?