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"Political attack ads are intended to make you not want to vote for people. " Are you saying attack ads are actually designed to keep you away from the polls a

• dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Are you saying attack ads are actually designed to keep you away from the polls altogether? That's usually an acceptable result, yes. They are intended to make you not vote for the target of the attack. Usually, the people behind them have some other candidate that they'd rather you vote for then not voting at all -- but getting you to do that isn't the point of the attack ad. Attack ads are popular in the US (with its ubiquitous use of duopolistic first-past-the-post voting) elections because getting people to not vote for your opponent (even if it means not voting at all) is itself a viable route to victory.