We face an uphill climb. Against us are a collection of structural, financial, and operational opponents that are hell bent on preventing a turn of the political tides for the government of the United States. Laws set up to make our voices not matter. Money pouring in from all corners, some shadowy some not. And even an on going coordinated disinformation campaign in support of those presently in power by media outlets (and not just Fox News) and in social media.
It is foolish for any of us to take for granted a polling lead. It is foolish for any of us to not do what we can to turn back the rising tide of authoritarianism, and out right fascism. And many of those around here are up to great efforts to tackle that, hitting the streets and working for local candidates. Or running themselves. But there is one key front in this battle that isn’t being well addressed. And its a front that perhaps we shouldn’t go all ‘golly gee I wish the DNC would do more of this!’ with. Because its something that we ourselves have the power to enact action on. Its something that we the voters on the left, the voters that are the base of the Democratic party, need to pick up the slack on. And that is the battle line that is social media.
Thus here I shall make a proposal. A proposal that broken down equates to fighting harder and smarter in such social media spaces.
I’ve observed several things in the universe of social media this last year. In addition to the copious legions of bots pushing right wing content I have noticed the waning and waxing of narratives pushed from the left. I’m not talking word handed down from on high from your favorite candidate of choice, past, present, or future. I’m talking about messages being derived by everybody else. Though the cause and effect of the national narrative changes and where polling moves in comparison with these trends may be ambiguous, we, the people, failing to push our own narratives in the face of the constant grind of the machine against us is perhaps foolish from the get go.
So my first proposal is in total that we as activists need to be better about social media. But what does that mean exactly?
First, content. We need content. Lots of content. More content than the troll farms can produce. Retweeting a sick burn from a fourth hand source is fine and fun, but we need all of us to put some effort into the small stuff. Even exasperated sarcastic postings on facebook showing your frustration with the state of affairs in this country can and will be seen by people. Some will be allies who will realize once again what we’re fighting for. Some will be swing voters who might realize that oh yeah, the president and his party are going full on psycho and are hurting my friend, maybe that’s a bad thing. And maybe some who will see it will be someone who buys fully into right wing ideology, but will be moved to maybe consider other options when they see someone they care about in pain. And still others will not only buy into far right ideology but have bought into the persecution complex that many Republicans are all about these days. A single post might not crack open that narrative world they live in, but maybe in time, if they see that what they are doing, what they are supporting blindly, is hurting not just some distant new york lib, but their sibling, parent, child, or friend, maybe they’ll get their head out of their back side for long enough to start questioning.
So make content. And make it personal. A personal revelation can lead to a personal revolution in another. And don’t be afraid to have it be seen by those that we disagree with.
Second, support those making social media content by spreading their message. Yeah, it might annoy some folks that you’re sharing your friend’s posts to your time line a lot. But far more people will see it and give it some time. And if something is particularly powerful, share it on multiple platforms. Yes, be smart on what you share like this of course. No need to draw fire from trolls towards someone who is vulnerable. But a lot of us can take a few punches. More than people realize. If you’re unsure, ask and of course respect people’s preferences and privacy. The goal here is to have more left leaning memes, ideas, and original content go viral, or even have a chance to. Again, if we don’t show up to the social media playground, we can’t win the narrative. And if we can’t win the narrative, winning elections becomes monumentally more difficult. So support the words of others. Share their ideas.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, learn to overcome the failures of the social media platforms. A system, like facebook, twitter, or youtube, that is reliant on manipulatable metrics to push content is not a system that is your friend. Never forget that. We are thus presented with two choices. We could go to the dark side and set up bot nets, foreign supported or domestic, to push content like the right is more than happy to do. Or we could learn to over come the poorly structured algorithms in more constructive and organic ways. Being active about sharing content of others is one of those ways. Another is active wondering. On Facebook, look through your friends and look at their pages directly to find content that Facebook isn’t interested in showing you. Comment on it, and share the good stuff with your own feed. On twitter look at the replies to people you follow and find someone with a smaller following who shares your attitude, and follow them. Maybe strike up a conversation and offer up the suggestions I’m posting here to them. On Youtube, find small time content creators who, because their content is not crazy pants conspiracy non-sense or pretty young face garbage content, will never get heavy promotion under the current system, and follow them. Like their videos, comment on them, share a link to a particularly well made vid of theirs on the other platforms.
Doing all this… it takes time. And effort. A lot of us perhaps have taken to the habit of simply being passive consumers of social media. Only really promoting a favorite candidate’s latest when it happens to stumble across our feed. But we can’t operate like this. We simply can not let the right wing social media machine get away with murdering democracy in America right before our eyes. Resistance in the 21st century requires us to step up and say things. Share things. And side step the funnels that push us to complacency within our own social media bubbles. And most of all, make the message about us. Our struggles, our realities, and our lives. Authenticity has a better chance at cutting through the noise. We can not rely on a national or state committee to get this together. There’s no time for them to really come to understand the battleground like we do.
So get out there, and speak. Be heard. Share your story. Share your friend’s stories. We gotta be personal about this revolution. Good luck.