Record Voter Turnout Reveals Biggest Winner of 2020

We had the largest turnout in American history — 145 million votes  — where Donald J. Trump got more votes than any presidential candidate in American history, except for Joe Biden. In my opinion, this election broke another record by being the most negative since the American Civil War where red states got redder and blue states got bluer.

So did this polarization lead to the higher turnout?

TIME columnist Olivia B. Waxman and USA Today columnist Michael P. McDonald think so, but political scientists Shanto Iyengar of Stanford and Stephen Ansolabehere of Harvard have long believed negative ads, “shrink and polarize the electorate.” Political science schools such as the one I graduated from argue that when campaigns “go negative” it’s more about reducing turnout for your opponent than increasing turnout for yourself. The bottom line is it’s hard to explain away such a massive uptick in turnout to America’s ongoing trend of greater political polarization because after all, there was a higher turnout in 2008 vs. 2012/2016 even though the latter two elections had a more polarized electorate.

Many experts accurately predicted we’d see a massive increase in turnout in 2020 based on how campaigns were broadening their net to target more voters, and although I had agreed with their prediction I disagreed with their rationale because I thought we’d see an increase not because of the campaigns, but despite them. In 2020, many Republicans and Democrats held their nose for their preferred candidate whereas in 2008 both sides proudly proclaimed their vote for either Obama or McCain.

So I believe the real reason for this unprecedented turnout was because of GOTV advancements. You see take a close look at the most effective GOTV strategies…

Four-of-the-top-five strategies have to do with telling you and your neighbors if you have voted (a not-so-subtle threat, “We are watching you!”), targeted advertising, and election day reminders. It’s costly, but it works.

So now let’s imagine the perfect GOTV tool where you could remind and pressure your supporters on a daily basis for little to no money.

Introducing… social media.

After Google, Apple, and Facebook banned Alex Jones at virtually the same time, I wrote about how as the 2018 and 2020 elections approached that we could expect Big Tech’s political activism to ramp up by sending us all sorts of alerts before the election. I didn’t expect just how far they’d go in 2020 whereby any post about the election would cause A.I. to add a link directing people where and when to vote. I’m not saying social media encouraging voting is a bad thing, but this tactic alone exerted a massive influence on our election not to mention all the other tactics they used to drive up turnout from the stories & accounts they boosted to the stories & accounts they suppressed & banned.

The bottomline is people who would have otherwise not voted because they aren’t knowledgeable in politics or aren’t happy with either of the candidates felt that in 2020 they had to vote. VOTE OR DIE. Please note that a lot of the people pounding their chest about how it’s your “civic duty” to vote probably won’t vote in 2021, 2022, or 2023, but I digress. Americans more than ever felt the need to publicize the fact they voted because did you even vote if you didn’t share your “I voted” sticker to Instagram? Because this time if they didn’t vote then they’d be told by their Aunt Linda that they were complicit in electing a fascist or by their Uncle Larry that they were complicit in electing a communist. Many people voted just to get the base off their back and not feel “left out.” That’s the power of social media. And that’s why the biggest winner of the 2020 election is Big Tech.

After election day Big Tech’s stocks went up. Why did their stocks go up?

For one, this election demonstrated to investors yet again just how powerful and influential these digital monopolies are. And two, Big Tech arguably benefits the most from a divided government because if Republicans or Democrats were in control of a unified government then they would’ve likely gone after Big Tech for different reasons, i.e. Republicans over free speech and Democrats over inequality. But now that the government will probably remain divided the parties will most likely continue to yell at each other from across the aisle as Big Tech grows unimpeded by profiting off our anger and insecurities.