12-11-2020, 08:20 PM
US President Donald Trump, perhaps unsurprisingly, has alleged fraud in the Nov 3 presidential election, without offering what anyone would consider real evidence, other than the fact that votes for his democratic challenger, Joe Biden, keep turning up in states where Trump initially led in the count.
The president has already announced that he intends to take the election to the Supreme Court, despite the fact that at the time of his statement, millions of votes in numerous states were still to be counted.
Yet, Trump’s fraud claim could be part of a psychological strategy, deftly executed by a master manipulator. If so, the president may be paving the way to persuading large numbers of Americans to reject the legitimacy of his defeat.
A unique scientific study conducted the day before and the morning of the 2016 US presidential election, probing attitude changes in 1,000 voting-age adults, found that exposure to conspiratorial rhetoric about election interference produced a profound psychological effect. In particular, it led to significantly heightened negative emotions (anxiety and anger), and also undermined support for democratic institutions.
The study, recently published in the academic journal Research & Politics, found that those exposed to conspiracy theories regarding election-rigging were less willing to accept the results of an election, and became less inclined to concede the outcome when the result threatened their partisan goals
Its authors, Bethany Albertson and Kimberly Guiler of the University of Texas, argue that vote-rigging allegations strike at the very foundations of democracy. For example, they may render the public doubtful as to whether non-violent transfers of national authority should follow from a rigged vote.
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The president has already announced that he intends to take the election to the Supreme Court, despite the fact that at the time of his statement, millions of votes in numerous states were still to be counted.
Yet, Trump’s fraud claim could be part of a psychological strategy, deftly executed by a master manipulator. If so, the president may be paving the way to persuading large numbers of Americans to reject the legitimacy of his defeat.
A unique scientific study conducted the day before and the morning of the 2016 US presidential election, probing attitude changes in 1,000 voting-age adults, found that exposure to conspiratorial rhetoric about election interference produced a profound psychological effect. In particular, it led to significantly heightened negative emotions (anxiety and anger), and also undermined support for democratic institutions.
The study, recently published in the academic journal Research & Politics, found that those exposed to conspiracy theories regarding election-rigging were less willing to accept the results of an election, and became less inclined to concede the outcome when the result threatened their partisan goals
Its authors, Bethany Albertson and Kimberly Guiler of the University of Texas, argue that vote-rigging allegations strike at the very foundations of democracy. For example, they may render the public doubtful as to whether non-violent transfers of national authority should follow from a rigged vote.
- More -