Social Media is Killing our Democracy
We’ve probably all heard the question lately:
Have you seen what's happening in our Country?
What can we do?
I honestly don’t know exactly what the right answer will be for any individual person. We all have different experiences, beliefs, and honestly levels of risk-tolerance when it comes to expressing those beliefs.
But I will tell what’s almost certainly NOT going to help …
Ranting about it on social media and sharing post after post from your favorite influencers and paid commentators.
First off:
Anybody who might be impacted by what you’re sharing has already either tuned you out, or you’ve already blocked them for disagreeing with you.
Beyond that though …
It’s likely not only useless, but also counter productive … because people reposting all these memes and rants think they’re doing something to help.
They’re not.
And because they think they’re already “doing something” they don’t show up to the kind of in person stuff that might really matter.
Let me tell you a story from about a week before the 2024 election.
In late October, I went to the Harris website and volunteered to door knock on a couple of evenings leading up to Election Day. I’d done this in Texas in 2018 for Beto O’Rourke and it was a good experience (Wichita Falls is not exactly a Democratic hotbed, but all the conversations I had, and people I met were pleasant).
So I get my assigned night (a Monday) and time (6:30pm) and am told to report to the local Democratic headquarters to receive directions, training, and material. When I showed up at about 6:25pm, the picture at the top of this post is what it looked like.
No other people were waiting outside.
Inside wasn’t much different.
The only guy there was the paid worker, who was actually getting ready to close up early and go home. (one week before the election 🙄)
To his credit, he did stay for a little while to talk with me. But the part of the conversation that still sticks out is where he told me: “I understand if you’re not enthusiastic about Kamala Harris, she is a ‘corporate Dem’ after all. But some of the other candidates running aren’t too bad”.
This is the guy the Harris campaign was paying.
He then showed me how to download and log into their phone app, and told me I could find a list of houses near mine where I could knock on the door and read from the script that he also gave me.
This was nothing like my experience in 2018.
It’s part of the reason I wasn’t as surprised as some when the results of the election were announced a little over a week later.
You know who was surprised though?
Millions of people around the country who’d spent hours a day “campaigning” online (or sending those annoying text messages). Seriously, their social media feeds are filled with nothing but politics. They live and breathe it almost 24/7.
And do you know how many minds they likely changed with all their “effort”?
Probably as close to zero as you can get.
Refusing to even talk with anybody who doesn’t already agree with you, then being surprised when they don’t do what you’d like them to do, is probably pretty close to the definition of insanity.
This is a big part of the reason I am now (again) a registered Independent, and do my best to tune out politics online. As we get closer to the mid-term elections, I may end up participating in events in my local community. But it’s very unlikely you’ll hear about any of my opinions here on the Internet … and even if you somehow assume what they are, I definitely won’t be “debating” you about them.
Bottom line: if you want to potentially make a difference by being involved with politics, do it in-person and locally.
Save your computer/phone time for stuff that makes you happy … like pictures.
Til next time,
Todd
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