Election FUD

There’s been a lot of talk about voting fraud over the last couple of election cycles. The discussion over free and fair elections is important, relevant, and worthy of attention. The way to resolve fraud of any kind is through the implementation of processes and procedures that mitigate the risks of fraud. Easier said than done, but it is a matter of processes, procedures, strategies, and tactics. What hasn’t received enough attention and is more prevalent is election FUD. Yes, FUD; Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. FUD is not about processes and procedures, but it is a matter of strategies and tactics.

People who oversee electoral campaigns use FUD to sway the sentiment of the voting public. Campaign communication strategists often depend on their target audience reacting with emotion¹ rather than logic. This simple political strategy may win an election, but the policies implemented by the victorious politician affect more aspects of our lives than mere emotion. We cannot pay our utility bills, feed our families, pay rent, or buy a house or car with emotions. FUD is emotional; legislated reality is where we live our daily lives.

Historical FUD with Present Day Consequences

The terminology “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt” has been with us for many decades, if not centuries. We can find it in text from publications in 1917² and earlier. The abbreviated term, FUD, was associated with an IBM marketing tactic beginning in the mid-1970s.³ The strategy involved swaying customers’ sentiment toward IBM’s competition through instilling uncertainty and doubt about the competitors’ technology and fear of the ramifications of using unreliable vendors. Gene Amdahl, a former IBM employee, popularized the term after he left IBM and became a competitor in the mainframe market.⁴ The Technology sector adopted the term and used it to reference marketing tactics employed by other tech companies.

In a Computerworld article from 1992 entitled “Microsoft blows smoke, just like the old IBM,” writer Garry N. Ray made an interesting observation. In one of the article segments, “Ignore the facts,” he said:

“Bottom line: FUD. Connect technologies that aren’t related. Imply but don’t promise. Criticize, but don’t say why. Keep everyone guessing.”⁵

In that statement, replace the word “technologies” with “ideas,” and you may have something political communication strategists find useful. The concept of “Connect ideas that aren’t related” is important. Associating a nation’s border security with racial discrimination is an example. Whether the topics are related isn’t as important as making a legislative issue a moral or emotional issue. The article’s segment title “Ignore the facts” is fitting, as FUD and fact live at opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum. Later in the article Ray wrote:

“Bottom Line: FUD. Throw numbers at customers — the bigger, the better. Hope that no one asks what the numbers mean. If they do, offer more numbers, and explain them in excruciating, mind-numbing detail.”⁶

In that statement replace the word “numbers” again with “ideas,” and a political strategist may have the perfect campaign FUD recipe. Broad sweeping ideas described with three-letter acronyms is an example. If forced to explain the policies behind the acronyms, politicians and their surrogates can then drill down with more ideas until the electorate’s eyes glaze over.

FUD is an effective marketing tool whether the product is technology or anything else including a politician. After political strategists design their FUD, tactical deployment becomes important for the FUD to work its magic. Branding the competition as bad, evil, untrustworthy, unreliable, corrupt, or with any other negative attributes is effective only if the information becomes prevalent. Political campaigns use various methodologies to publicize FUD, the primary one being the media in all its forms.

FUD Dissemination

Does FUD work? If it didn’t, marketing strategists would have abandoned it long ago. Instead, political marketeers enhanced, embellished, and honed FUD into a razor-sharp tool meant to cut into the psyche of unwary voters. Broad range dissemination of information, including FUD, is dependent on sources that are in the business of broadcasting. In general, political parties are not in the news broadcasting business. Cable news channels, mainstream media, social media, and periodicals available via the internet occupy the mass communication sector of society. Companies use the media to advertise their products. It is a natural fit for political campaigns to do the same.

We can theorize that political parties find the news media and social media useful to actualize FUD. That theory is based on a late 2019 Pew Research Center survey that found distinct differences of trust in various news sources between Democrats and Republicans.⁷ Since U.S. Americans have news source preferences based on political ideologies, would it be logical for political parties to use those specific sources as FUD delivery mechanisms? Yes. This is not about simple political advertising to gain name recognition, but sharing information that blurs the lines between opinion and fact as a part of regular programming.

From the “panel of experts” to the trusted commentator, the media tries to gain the the voters’ trust throughout election cycles. Most media outlets promote a visage of impartiality, but the façade of nonpartisan rhetoric has worn thin. That is the reason for the news media preference divide based on political party. Viewers rely on their preferred news outlet to provide information from a particular political perspective. The relationship between the media and political parties is mutually beneficial. The political parties get their FUD message out, and the media outlets have a staunch base of viewers looking for a certain point of view.

When we hear FUD, most of us don’t think, “that’s an emotional ploy meant to manipulate me.” Many of us think, “how could the candidate’s opponent use those words and expect me to vote for her or him.” Often, we don’t have the time to verify if the candidate said those things, or if the source took the words out of context. We don’t change channels to hear the other perspective or to see if our source of information omitted any facts. It’s easier to accept what our preferred panel of experts and commentators tell us and believe the FUD. This leads to misperceptions, and we fear the other side as we become more doubtful and uncertain about the future if we do not elect our favored candidate.

FUD Backlash

A 2023 Gallup/Knight Foundation survey found many voters are increasingly wary of information from the news media.⁸ One finding was that “Fifty percent of Americans feel most national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public.”⁹ In that survey, only twenty-five percent of the respondents “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that “In general, most national news organizations do not intend to mislead, misinform, or persuade the public.”¹⁰ Another interesting survey result was that, “Negative sentiment about the news media has grown over time — particularly among independents.”¹¹

The Gallup/Knight survey references “emotional trust” several times in the article. We will not speculate what comprises “emotional trust,” but we do know fear, uncertainty, and doubt are emotional reactions to external stimuli. The stimulus in this case is information presented as factual news. If the reaction to FUD presented as news is a loss of confidence in the news media, the desired effect of convincing an audience with FUD is counterproductive. News organizations can correct this by separating fact from political commentary. Rather than correct their course of action, many cable news organizations double down on FUD, and mainstream news organizations whose reputations haven’t been as blemished may see FUD as a mechanism to retain and perhaps gain viewership.

If FUD is the reason the voting public no longer trust the media, the rational response is to back off the FUD. Campaigns are about winning votes. Losing strategies do not win votes. If voters believe news organizations are scamming them, then the strategy and tactics are misfiring or backfiring. We the electorate control not only the occupational destiny of politicians, but also of the news media. If we no longer respond with emotion to emotional ploys, they will lose votes and viewers. If we respond with logic, reason, and demand a rational debate of ideas, we will force the media and politicians to use those same standards to appeal their case to us.

Cable news media and mainstream media are not the only purveyors of FUD. Social media is the fastest growing influential source of information. The same rules apply to social media as the televised sources. The internet makes well known social media available as well as the least known podcaster. Discover their agenda, then decide if they are dependable sources of election information.

Conclusion

Political FUD floods the airwaves every election cycle and has been more intense during the last few election cycles. When we hear that elections are about “hearts, souls, and minds,” we should be wary; a dose of FUD will follow. We, the electorate, are not relinquishing control of our hearts, souls, or minds to any political party. Elections are about hiring a person to get a job done. If they cannot do the job, fire them, and hire someone else. Just make sure the job description states their compensation package does not include our hearts, souls, or minds.

You are your most trustworthy source of information; not your employer, your friends, media pundits, social media, or any source of information that can offer opinion as fact. Any of those sources can have a personal agenda or be susceptible to emotional ploys or deceptive persuasion. Develop an intellectual approach to make wise voting decisions. Voting with emotion rather than intellect may make us feel good or noble short-term but has little to do with paying the bills or providing security for our families long-term. Vet your information providers. If they tell you they are not allowing a political candidate airtime on their network because the person lies, yet they later give you a distilled version of what the politician says, be skeptical. The implication is you can’t be trusted to make your own election decisions, so they’ll do it for you.

Do not form a codependent relationship with the media; they can and will abuse your trust. The media has made “low information voters” a topic they consider detrimental. They want us to get our information from them. That is in their professional and financial best interest, not ours. If the information is not valid, then a “low information voter” is better positioned to make a logical decision than the voter with a large amount of flawed information.

Since the term FUD originated with an IBM marketing strategy, let’s go to an IBM strategy that was also popular in the 1980s, RAS. Those of us who worked with IBM mainframes at the systems level remember it well. IBM states it as, ‘The reliability, availability, and serviceability (or “RAS”) of a computer system have always been important factors in data processing.’¹² When we choose to vote for a political candidate, reliability, availability, and serviceability should be fundamental voting criteria. Let’s make minor modifications to the concept and apply it to elected officials.

• The elected officials can be relied on to do what they promised to do while campaigning.
• The elected officials must always be available to their constituents while they are in office.
• The elected officials serve the best interest of their constituents and if they do not, their constituents can correct the problem while the politician holds office.

Only we the electorate can demand RAS and scrap FUD. The responsibility is ours. Make RAS the norm and FUD an outdated political marketing scam.

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