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I watch for that many American citizens will revel in anxiety and anxiousness as we way this yr’s elections. Talking for my part, I've considerations forward of what could be the final elections performed underneath a semblance of democracy.
However I’ve heard that dealing with your fears head-on is one of the simplest ways to conquer them. So relatively than bottle up those considerations and stew over them for months, I believe it’s profitable to put them out right here. My hope is that talking about those considerations brazenly is helping us all devise techniques to fight them.
So let’s get to it. Listed here are my most sensible 5 fears heading into the 2024 elections.
No. 1: Social media-focused campaigns
I concern that this marketing campaign season shall be extraordinarily on-line, with applicants extra reliant than ever on social media platforms to unfold their messaging. And I concern this may increasingly make electorate extra prone to malicious actors and tool agents within the tech business, who depend on tech gear — equivalent to social media algorithms and synthetic intelligence-enabled deepfakes — that make it simple to control the general public. (We’ve already begun to peer this in motion, FYI — learn extra right here and right here.)
No. 2: False equivalencies
I concern an uninformed and/or impulsive public this is allowed — or inspired — to make false equivalencies between President Joe Biden and previous President Donald Trump. I to find few issues extra doubtful at the moment than the advice that Republicans and Democrats are “two wings of the same bird,” “two sides of the same coin” or another cliche that means the 2 main events are remotely alike. Democrats nonetheless improve liberal democracy, which is a car to modify insurance policies that the general public dislikes. Republicans, then again, improve a person in Trump who’s vowing to quash this sort of dissent and dialogue that Democrats recently harbor of their occasion. Those two issues aren't the similar.
No. 3: Voter suppression and intimidation
I concern that a raft of voter suppression regulations and voter intimidation techniques will reach deterring folks from heading to the polls and that the click corps shall be in large part disinterested in overlaying it. The concept our elections are extensively regarded as reputable regardless of open proof of voter suppression and intimidation — like armed ballot watchers, as an example — is infuriating. It displays that the USA isn't the democracy we continuously proclaim ourselves to be. If truth be told, we lean extra towards fascism than many people wish to recognize.
No. 4: 3rd-party hucksters
I concern that electorate will include doubtful, purportedly liberal third-party applicants related to to right-wing figures who need Republicans to win in 2024. Particularly, Jill Stein, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West.
No. 5: Trump pawns within the Black group
I concern folks of colour who change into willful pawns in Trump’s effort to painting himself as pleasant to nonwhite folks. I’ve written so much over the last yr about conservative efforts to make use of ostensibly Black media retailers and Black celebrities — rappers, specifically — to push pro-Trump speaking issues and conspiracy theories. Those retailers and figures don’t talk for the Black group in any vital manner, however their allegiance to Trump and right-wing beliefs are continuously used so to downplay or disregard the racism throughout the MAGA motion.