I know what you're thinking -- another post about Trump. Nope. This is a post about social media and data-mining.
I'm seeing commentary from a bunch of people, operating from various ideologies, to the following effect (not a quote, a paraphrase of a number of such claims):
Social media giants (e.g. Facebook) and data miners (e.g. Cambridge Analytica) dispose of such enormous power in terms of "opinion leader" mojo that they are effectively (and effectually) engaged in mass brainwashing of the hapless mass of ordinary voters, skewing election results, opinion poll results, etc.
But the fact that that claim is being made constitutes an implicit claim itself: The claim that the person making the claim is somehow magically immune to this brainwashing, unlike the rest of us poor gullible wind-up toys. All of us rubes just need to pay attention to the special people who are immune to influences outside themselves (and who, of course, have only our best interests at heart), and we'll all be saved by and by.
Oddly, most of these people are the same types who claim to be dedicated to "democracy" -- that is, rule by people who are so congenitally mentally crippled that a "Help Jesus Beat Hillary" ad on Facebook will throw a wrench into their capacity for judgment and ruin everything.
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