Earlier this week, a panicked post on a community social media site mentioned that a satanic church was going to build a congregation in my area (I’m all for freedom of religion as long as that religion doesn’t impinge on the basic human rights of others). The post predictably sparked multiple visceral responses and outrage, but I should know better: Much of social media thrives on outrage by tapping into our emotions and our innate nature as social beings. It’s well known that the algorithms used by Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter all rely on “attention economy.” 

Social media algorithms are designed to promote content that engages (and enrages) people for as long as possible, encouraging them to spend more time online. This in turn gives advertisers an advantage: Keep users online as long as possible and maybe you can sell them something. Conservative candidates are using the same approach, keep users online for as long as possible and maybe you can get their votes.

As social creatures, we humans like to share emotional stories as a means of building social bonds. It’s just how we’re wired. A 2007 study hypothesized that when people share emotional experiences and values, it brings them together as a group, and as a result contributes to collective action against things that they feel passionate about.

Nothing brings people together more than fear and outrage. When it comes to political platforms, fear and outage have become political fodder for the GOP as we get closer to the 2024 election year. Social media platforms are a great way to amplify visceral subjects, just visit any conservative lawmaker’s Twitter account.

Just last week, the media was up in arms over reports of cocaine found in the West Wing of the Whitehouse, throwing gasoline on the Hunter Biden scandal and his history of substance abuse. 

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stated “I’ve long believed, I think a lot of us have believed that the Biden administration’s been blowing it on a lot of fronts,” the GOP presidential candidate said. “But I guess it’s a little bit more literal than even I had thought.” 

Of course, the Former Guy couldn’t keep quiet, and wrote “Does anybody really believe that the COCAINE found in the West Wing of the White House, very close to the Oval Office, is for the use of anyone other than Hunter & Joe Biden.” And Georgia Representative MTG couldn’t resist and called for White House staffers and members of the first family, (including Hunter of course) to be drug tested. 

Sparking moral outage is nothing new in American politics. For example, during the Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams campaigns of 1828, a pro-Adams Cincinnati newspaper claimed that “General Jackson’s mother was a common prostitute.” President Grover Cleveland was found to be supporting a child he allegedly fathered with a woman who wasn’t his wife. Then there’s the Willie Horton issue during the 1988 Bush campaign and more recently the Former Guy’s shouts of “crooked” Hillary’s emails. 

Today’s culture wars are a prime example of our human penchant to be drawn to the ugly, the depraved, and the shocking: It gains our attention like a car accident or a house fire. We just can’t look away, and that’s where the danger is. 

The attacks on basic human rights in this country are a prime example of America gone outraged. The reversal of Roe v. Wade, cutting down Affirmative Action, the continued erosion of LGBTQ+ rights, and attacks on immigrants and women’s right to choose are all based on false claims of “baby-killing,” child grooming, attacks on Christianity, and reverse racism.

All of these assaults are based on moral outrage fueled by fear, and GOP candidates are banking on fear to get votes in 2024. 

America, don’t give into claims of satanic churches setting up shop in our communities or theories of wild cocaine parties being thrown in the White House. Don’t be sucked into the abyss of right-wing culture wars which prey upon our human weakness for the shocking and outrageous. Let’s see the conservative car-wreck campaigns for what they are, and use our heads when going to the polls in 2024.