How Social Media is a Political Equalizer
It started with Barack Obama, Bernie perfected it and now we have an entire freshman class of Dem Representatives who were crowdsourced, crowdfunded and are teaching the older generation how to be social media saavy.
In 2008 Barack Obama’s campaign started using social media in ways no other campaign had, it wasn’t just used to raise money, it was used to connect and recruit volunteers, organize events, raise awareness of upcoming events, and reach out to a demographic of voters that has a history of not voting, people under 30. And it worked. The unknown Senator from Illinois took the political world by storm, being one of the first to concentrate on small dollar independent donations because his campaign had the tools to do so.
Fast forward to 2016, dark horse candidate and relatively late to announce his campaign, Bernie Sanders, relied entirely on social media to raise millions through small dollar donors. By eschewing corporate mega donors and trusting in the latent anger that the American people have felt about not truly having a voice in politics, he was able to seriously content with two much more well known, better funded and better entrenched candidates. Now, as we all know, Bernie didn’t win, but his legacy of campaigning separately from the DNC and RNC machines opened the door for a flood of candidates who come from middle class jobs, who never thought they could afford to run and had no idea how to even start a campaign.
Groups like Represent.us, Brand New Congress and others used social medias ability to reach out to people nationwide and pull together political organizers who could lend their experience to campaigns like Ocasio-Cortez’s. It allowed someone like Beto o’ Rourke to run his Senate campaign purely off livestream videos as he crisscrossed the entire state of Texas. Campaigns that may not have been as successful such as MJ Hegar’s still made impacts, because more and more everyday Americans can see that it is possible to make our government truly representative of the people that live here.
Not only has social media become an political equalizer regarding campaigns, it’s also allowed a group of teenagers from Parkland to create a massive movement that became March For Our Lives. In the months following the Parkland shooting, students not only from Parkland, but survivors from other school shootings banded together with the help of well established non profits to plan, host and pull off a massive demonstration march that took place alll across the United States. That demonstration fueled more subtle political activism as these students toured the country using the media attention that came from the tragedy to motivate thousands of people in their teens and twenties to register to vote. Not content there, these survivors and the parents of children that were killed used their social media saavy to pressure legislatures into meetings and actions that resulted in a swath of gun control bills across the country.
As with all tools, there is a dark side to social media, false news reports, bots, people from foreign countries taking advantage of a segment of our society that refuses to check actual sources to sway people’s view of reality. Which is a massive problem, social media, and the lack of critical thinking skills in this country has founded a whole new problem with people discounting things they do not like as “FakeNews”. That all data sources that conflict with their opinion are inherently corrupt, wrong and full of lies. We’ve all had a multitude of conversations with people that refuse to believe basic facts. unfortunately, there seems to be no way to convince these people other than when the reality they continue to deny smacks them directly in the face.
However, I feel that the answer to this problem lies in social media itself. The ability to instantly fact check statements is something that has never existed before. Now, whether or not the people you are fact checking want to listen isn’t pertinent to this, what that fact checking does do is allow both sides to be seen alongside each other, so that people who may perhaps not have delved into the fine details of whatever topic is being discussed have a slew of information at their fingertips to use to educate themselves with. I’ve often learned new information using articles and such linked in comment threads, or found new topic experts to follow. I always research the links, of course, to make sure they’re not bogus, but the 24/7 up to the minute conversations on social media makes all knowledge accessible. It also makes our elected officals accessible, if they choose to use it.
When Rep Ocasio-Cortez was elected and got to DC, several Senators and Representatives that has been there for years asked her to host a Social Media 101 class, which she generously did, and whatever she taught them seems to be working. I have seen more and more Sens and Reps get active on social media, using the direct connection with the citizen to get out valuable, timely and pressing information with regards to multiple political topics. They’ve used it to educate people on procedure, to share the videos of hearings that most people would never watch, because, realistically, how many people watch CSpan. In doing so, they are bypassing the media and putting out their side, all their sides, which is what a true democracy and free press should consist of. We should all get the same information, from the actual first person source and use it to stay informed so we can make accurate decisions.
So, at this point, no one has any excuse to not be politically informed. Follow your Senators, your Representatives, your Mayor, heck even follows CSPAN on twitter or Facebook. Follow lawyers that are experts in their field, follow scientists, follow reputable non biased news sources like Reuters. Use this amazing tool which allows us to truly be the informed citizenry the Founding Fathers hoped we would be. Without knowledge people are easily led astray, don’t be someone who relies on memes to learn the truth.
