Political Ads: An Idiot Test

It is almost over now. Being inundated by election ads at every turn is about to go dormant for a couple of years, at least at the national level. Whether those three-ish years of relative freedom from over-exposure to the inane efforts by our politicians, political parties, and dubiously funded political entities will be sufficient to avoid further brain damage will remain one of the great unknowns. But what about the damage already done?

If you don’t know what that ‘damage’ is, I am going to proceed a little slowly to avoid as much of the knee-jerk reaction that our politics and all the political ads seek to evoke. So, first it is necessary to state up front that I am not referring to the “ads” of one politician, party, or entity. Rather I am explicitly stating that the ads from all sides and promoters are as culpable for inflicting harm upon the public. Yes, the dosage of damage done may vary from instance to instance, but it is not due to one side purposefully intending to do less harm to the body politic or the American people.

As election day has approached, you have surely noticed the higher and higher frequency and repetitiveness of the political ads in your area. I suspect that the closer the polls indicate your state is in the election, the worse the political ads situation is for you. The news media predictably will have most likely reported on how annoyed and frustrated the public is with being mentally tortured and exhausted by the incessant repetition of these ads at every opportunity and via every communicative media you use. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be either aligned with a candidate, political party, or in a targeted group/population that receive more ads than the average American citizen.  

But what does being over-exposed to all these political ads have to do with an “Idiot Test”? Well, this is where having some folks feel insulted becomes almost unavoidable. From my perspective, feeling insulted is a voluntary and completely self-imposed condition; but I don’t control any given person’s choice except my own. The “Idiot Test” is a concept that asserts that works like many tests. If you can provide answers to questions or puzzles that are intended to determine or measure your ability(ies) or attribute(s) of something, like Intelligence or Empathy. Answering an Intelligence Test question correctly or solving a puzzle correctly raises your score.  Similarly, answering an Idiot Test question correctly would raise how much your rating of being an Idiot would increase. The usefulness of an Idiot Test is that there are questions that are assess idiocy but do not assess intelligence. Idiocy is not of necessity the opposite of Intelligence.  This concept is demonstrated very regularly in politics. Political ads are strangely their own examples of Idiot Tests; and how you respond to the ads is another kind of Idiot Test.

For example, here are some questions about political ads:

·        When you view, hear, or read a political ad do you trust the information presented in the ad?

·        Does the candidate, political party, or group funding the ad affect whether you trust the information?

·        How do you know if the information in the ad is accurate or not?

·        If information in a political ad is false or misleading, what does that say about the politician, political party, or group funding it?

·        When the false or misleading political ad is run by your candidate, party or group you back, what does that say about you?

It will be difficult for people not to pass the Idiot Test. In general, your answers to these five questions would have to that you “Don’t Trust a Politician” (or their associated entities) as a basic patriotic principle. It’s the “trusting” element which enables you to pass the test. That the public trusts politicians is a betrayal of your civic responsibility. Every politician that has ever been elected has played their part in creating the world as it is today, every one. Trusting politicians, political parties, and other political entities would appear to be a contributing factor to why the nation’s problems are not being dealt with effectively. Have we all passed the Idiot Test?