Whomever Has The Clout, Has the White House
There is not a drier topic to discuss when it comes to a changing world than social media’s impact. We all know how things spread like wildfire and can create quotable memes or change the world. Seeing those thinkpieces from 40 year olds just learning how algorithms work or millennial trying to make their #relatable content pop will always come off as annoying to digital natives that get younger and more experienced at an earlier age. It gets worse when politics get thrown into the mix.
By now, there have been at least 40 thinkpieces written in the past month alone about the power of social media during presidential elections. Candidates have to be astute politician with the wit and shamelessness of influencers to get any traction going for high profile elections. It’s why people have pointed out that of the 20+ Democratic candidates, one needs to have a “viral moment” to get somewhere. The short term is that you see 40–50 year old career public servants do a “whoa” or try to dance and we collectively cringe for a second. The long term is that their popularity could push them into the Oval Office.
The simple reality of those that doubt its effectiveness is that it works, and candidates know it works. President Donald Trump had already spent $33 million on online advertising by November and plans to spend more, as he has more cash on hand than any other president during their re-election.
The truth is that Trump, the firebrand populist of 2016, is getting presidential resources at his disposal in 2020 and plans to spend million in swing states he lost and could narrowly lose this year. The Trump campaign nearly flipped Minnesota, a Democratic stronghold for 40 years, and missed with only 1.5% of the vote. Trump’s campaign only spent $50,000 on that state. Trump hasn’t been shy about his desire to win Nevada either, despite the state trending bluer and bluer since 2016.
It isn’t in just swing states either. Trump’s campaign has spent almost half a million dollars on ads in the state of Texas, understanding that even that state is potentially up for grabs after he won the state by the narrowest margin of any Republican nominee in two decades.
Why does all of this matter? Trump’s political clout lives and dies in cyberspace. From the birther fiasco to the “go back to where you came from” tweet, his presence on social media made him who he is today and is still driving the conversation around him and politics for the forseeable future. Or so he and many others thought.
For the first time, digital natives will be the majority, and there is all the more need to throw digital dollars into the mix.
Since Russia’s election interference in 2016 and since we live in a fact-free hellscape where bullshit travels a mile a minute, political advertising is only getting stricter and in some cases, nonexistent. Twitter, Trump’s largest media platform, announced that it will no longer carry any political ads on its site going forward. Google recently announced that more than 300 ads by the Trump campaign were removed from Google searches and YouTube for violating their terms of service.
Facebook, by far the biggest platform for political advertising, doesn’t seem keen on changing the way they handle them, even admitting candidates who spread disinformation should be allowed to do so. Stories keep popping up over Zuck’s close ties to the Trump campaign and his media apparatus, but it remains to be seen as to what those consequences will be, if any happen at all.
Democrats seem keen on taking the fight to Trump on the digital front too. An organization started by David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, pledges to spend $75 on digitial advertising for Democrats. Elizabeth Warren, who has spent $8 million on digital advertising, advises breaking up tech companies like Facebook to halt their influence and digital monopoly. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who joined the race in November, will be taking Trump head on over the Internet, pledging an eye-popping $100 million in digital advertising, though it remains to be seen as to how Bloomberg will make traction so late into the game, nor does it bode well that the only two candidates that have Trump beat on the digital front are also two billionaires, one whom has never run for public office.
One Democrat who is dominating the Internet today is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; the 30-year-old Congresswoman is still years away from even being able to run in a presidential race, but her online presence is the clearest contrast of 50-somethings using Facebook to coordinate business and occasionally show they have a family and a digital native being in her element. Her media savvy helped her raise more money than any House candidate this year, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. AOC’s mix of in-depth analysis of social issues and gut-busting responses to shitposting at her expense makes her a star among millennials who pay attention to the process and it helps to relate to a public official who is not far removed from our own age. This too will fade from her in time, but her nearly 6 million Twitter following isn’t disappearing anytime soon.
The impact on digital presence, much like the election itself, is anyone’s guess as to how effective it may or may not be. The Democratic candidate pool is still far too large to really know who will be the best person for the job with the right message and Trump is going to have to defend his record against opponents who are nowhere near as divisive as Hillary Clinton was. Expect to see candidates dip their toes into new methods of messaging and tech companies to be walking a tightrope when it comes to their part in democracy.
And let’s hope they’re all smart enough to avoid TikTok and liking porn tweets. One can only hope at least.
