The Election Is Over. Please God, Can Political Spam Texts Be Too?

DEAR PATRIOT, we have some CRITICAL news. Your FAVORITE candidate is UP in the polls but DOWN in fundraising — or is that UP in fundraising but DOWN in the polls. REGARDLESS, the race is ALMOST OVER. With just HOURS TO GO, it might feel like the campaign is reaching out toYOU personally because you’re one of their most ANXIOUS supporters and they can tell that you’ve still got a LITTLE BIT OF MONEY remaining that you haven’t yet spent on THERAPY. Will you heed their CAPITAL LETTERS and DONATE your TIME, MONEY or what’s left of your HAIRLINE before it’s TOO LATE? Or will you try to MOVE ON with your life and nurture what’s left of your SANITY?

Yes, whatever happens in the aftermath of Tuesday’s historic U.S. election, there is at least one thing that Americans of all political stripes can agree on: Please God, let these fucking text messages be done with. 

By now, we all know what it feels like… A ping from your vibrating phone interrupts your day. Without you realizing it, the little dopamine centers in your brain start firing as you hope for a message about something important. Maybe it’s from a friend or romantic partner? Maybe a beloved family member? And then… heartbreak, disappointment, and anger as you realize it’s yet another long screed from a desperate Nancy Pelosi or unhinged Donald Trump Jr. YELLING at you for not doing more to SAVE THE COUNTRY. 

Indeed, across social media on Wednesday, people were hoping — praying, even — that these ominous, panic-inducing spam messages might finally end, posting pictures of thoughtful politicians, or even excited Oprahs, to illustrate the point.   

If your phone this election season has been drowning in messages that seem expressly designed to annoy and/or terrify you at all hours of the day, you’re not alone. As many as 25 billion — that’s billion with a b — messages have been sent this political cycle, according to one estimate, which is about 10 billion more than the 2022 midterms. And yes, at least a billion of them were probably sent to you personally — or at least it can often feel that way.

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There’s a few reasons for this surge. To start, the Supreme Court in 2021 made it easier for telemarketers to send these kinds of messages without your consent by narrowing the definition of exactly what constitutes an autodialer. Basically, as long as someone is feeding numbers into the machine to dial (as opposed to the machine generating phone numbers on its own) they can spam you ‘til their heart’s content.

Additionally, political campaigns tend to favor this form of outreach because it’s relatively cheap compared with buying broadcast air time for ads. Text messages are also more likely to be checked immediately because of their implicit sense of urgency, unlike emails that go unread or phone calls that are left unanswered (especially among younger people). 

And to get on one of these lists, it’s not as if you ever had to have donated previously to a political campaign. Some of your information may be in public records or voter registration lists, but there are also private brokers out there selling access to extensive databases they’ve compiled on everything from your purchases to your social media activity, allowing these campaigns to target highly specific demographics and voting blocs, like Gays for Trump or childless cat ladies.

For people who live in one of the few battleground states, the barrage has been particularly intense. “My mother doesn’t text me as much as Donald Trump’s campaign and Kamala Harris’s campaign has texted me,” one Philadelphia teacher told their local PBS affiliate.

The nature of election campaigning and fundraising has been so transformed by these messages that Melissa Michelson, a dean at California’s Menlo College whose research over a decade ago helped pave the way for the widespread use of this form of outreach, has been apologizing to voters for years for the monster she created — like some sort of J. Robert Oppenheimer figure, wracked by existential anguish at their invention. “When they mention how many texts they get, I say, ‘I am so sorry, I feel personally responsible,’’ Michelson told NPR back during the last presidential cycle in 2020.

Perhaps the messages wouldn’t be so draining were they not generally written in a SCREAMING voice or a near APOCALYPTIC tone imploring you to ACT NOW in a manner that might lead you to act like STEVE CARELL in ANCHORMAN and confess that you DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE YELLING ABOUT.

But as Nancy Scola wrote in a piece just last month for the Washingtonian, then they likely wouldn’t be as effective on our twisted little brains that are starved for terror. “While most of us say we want uplifting, positive politics, campaigns know we’re a bit full of it. Truth is, say those in the field, we respond more strongly to negative messaging,” Scola wrote. “That’s why so many texts are doom-coded.”

For future elections, there are a few steps you can take to try to stem the SMS onslaught, but as this vote nears the end, all that’s left to do is send our own final message to what’s been a grueling, surreal, and generally maddening time in American politics: STOP. OPT OUT. DECLINE. UNSUBSCRIBE.