How Our Labels Dehumanize Voters

Dehumanized voters might as well be dead voters. Either they do not vote for you or they simply stop voting at all. Of course, a few might still participate, but they will be among the 78% of Americans who see Congress and elected officials as a group of ineffectual politicians who are out of touch with their constituents. That attitude even taints legislators and elected officials who are new to political service.

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Our methods of polling to determine what voters or constituents in general think may work for statistics but produce unintended consequences. These consequences result in a breakdown of human trust and human interaction. Most likely they buttress failure to vote and provide an increasing mental justification for turning people's backs on the whole political process.

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The old adage "we have always done it this way" and its twin "but this is what works" are killing our campaigning and political connection to the voters post-election.

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Dehumanized voters in turn mentally dehumanize the politicians, bureaucrats, and our elected officials justifying anti-government angst. Left unchecked these public attitudes result in the breakdown of the rule of law. After all, why should we pay attention to these un-human people? They don't see us as being as fully human as themselves.

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On top of polling, the whole elections' media and campaign processes become a numbers game. People resent being numbers. This too has degraded the words vote and voter to dehumanized labels.