Angry Political Posts Won’t Change Minds
“It is harder to unite than to divide that is what makes it so precious and at the same time so fragile.”
~ Aysha Taryam
Anyone listening to talk radio, watching certain shows on cable news, or spending a few minutes on social media has come across angry political messages. Political screeds, invented by the right and adopted by the left, are rarely effective. If anything, they fire up the base, but this does little to institute any type of substantive change.
People often share outraged posts, fake news, exaggerated memes, and other messages hoping to get other people to see the world as they do. However, an angry screed filled with insults does not convey information or change minds. In fact, they often accomplish exactly the opposite. This technique shuts down discourse, rather than informing, educating, or connecting with people and encouraging dialog across ideologies.
Minds are almost never changed after reading an angry posts on social media. A study conducted by William Bradley at NYU and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found that tweets with moral and emotional language do not escape the bubble. The study analyzed 563,312 tweets on the subjects of gun control, climate change, and same sex marriage.
Researchers found that there were more retweets within ideological groups. This means that people retweeting the messages were already inclined to agree. For example, an outraged tweet by a conservative would not be retweeted by liberals or even independents, only other conservatives. The same was true for liberal messages. This method simply does not resonate across ideologies. Minds are not changed because the only people retweeting the messages were already on the same side of the issue as the person who created the tweet.
Starting a Conversation to Solve Problems
Whether people tend to be on the left, right, or center of the political spectrum, most understand that the country is facing real issues that need real solutions. “Change” is promised in every election season and automatically becomes the platform of the party not in power. In order to solve problems, people of varying ideological beliefs need to work together and bring this idea back to Washington D.C.
Anger at the actions of politicians and problems in the country is real and often quite understandable. People can, and should, get angry about certain issues, including those issues analyzed in Bradley’s NYU study. However, it is not conducive to finding solutions and creating a better country. Anger actually makes it more difficult to see a viable solution to any problem. This is true for problems experienced by individuals in their own lives, as well as larger problems that face society.
Using Anger as a Catalyst for Change
It is natural to get angry at some of the things that politicians have been trying to do lately, such as rolling back environmental regulations and attempting to write legislation that restricts voting rights or takes away access to healthcare or benefits that people rely on to survive. When properly channeled, anger can become a catalyst for change, as it can make people decide to care about a problem, actively engage, and seek solutions.
Anger has brought people together to protest against environmental damage, in support of science, and in Black Lives Matter marches and the Women’s March. People showed up at Town Hall meetings and contacted their representatives to stop a few attempts to replace the Affordable Care Act with legislation that would make care less accessible and less affordable. However, it is important to allow the anger to dissipate in order to be able to see clearly and determine the best way to move forward. Sharing a sarcastic or angry political meme on Facebook or Twitter won’t do it.
