The Democrats Need to Get Their Act Together

Toxic elitism is ruining our chance to defeat Donald Trump.

Earlier today, I was taking a walk in the backyard for the first time in a few days.

Here in South Florida the rainy season has begun and today was the first day in a bit that it hasn’t stormed. I woke up intentionally earlier than normal as I’m trying to cope with rainy season: if you don’t get your sun before noon EST, you’re shit out of luck.

On my walk today, I was listening to a piano tribute to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and was thinking a lot of thoughts. The previous night I had read Steven Levy’s (no relation) new book, Facebook: The Inside Story, and I stopped reading in the middle of Part III’s first chapter.

I went to sleep angry last night, and didn’t get that much of it. Why is that the case?

Because the chapter was about the 2016 Election.

The mainstream media, including the author (he is the editor-at-large of a mainstream technology magazine), have been quick to point out the flaws of Facebook. I agree with much of their criticism. If you don’t know by now, the TL;DR version of this is that Facebook severely mishandled the election — particularly with user data being vulnerable to villains and bad actors promoting fake news.

However, it was not this point that pissed me off last night. Rather, it was the way the Democrats had handled using the Facebook platform.

In 2008 and 2012 — when the Democrats actually won federal elections — the Obama campaign gained notoriety for being pioneers of technological adoption. In addition to successful advertising of the campaign on old media, they embraced the new media du jour: social. It’s funny that we forgot this — it was the Democrats who were the good ones at utilizing social media.

I don’t have to explain the impact that social media has on its users because you probably experience it on a daily basis. I get a dose of dopamine whenever I get a notification on this platform, on Facebook, and on Twitter. I get another dose of dopamine when I see a post on either platform that I agree with. If I’m not careful, I can accidentally put myself in an echo chamber where the majority of content I see is stuff I already agree with.

It’s this insight that makes platforms like Facebook relatively dangerous.

Let’s be honest: electing Obama as president was not dangerous. Remarkably, he reformed health care in a country allergic to it in the public domain. He was the first, and only, colored president. He inspired generations and told them, “hey, if my name is Barack and I can be here than you can do better than me one day.”

This is the message that I, at least, got from Obama (now. I was a Republican in high school. More on that in a separate story.)

Let’s be honest again: electing Donald Trump as president is absolutely dangerous.

I usually refrain from writing about politics here — my last political article was published in 2018 — but what President Trump has done to the world is absolutely catastrophic. He has mismanaged the pandemic, and at one point we had a daily death toll akin to 9/11. We became normalized to it as well. Can you imagine if Fox News reported on a daily basis that Osama Bin Laden killed another three thousand people every single day for weeks? Statistically speaking, that’s the truth.

No, instead they choose to report on conspiracy theories and how the Democrats constantly criticize the president.

We’ve literally neutered ourselves to death.

But speaking of which, now it’s time for your reckoning, Democrats.

I’m 22 and have only voted in one election. I voted blue all the way, when I was 18. Mind you that I’m registered as a non-affiliate in the state of Florida — can’t be an independent because, alas, that’s a party here. Florida being Florida, I guess.

I almost succumbed to the party bullshit but am happy that I stayed true to my values. Non-affiliate forever!

It’s not necessarily that the Democrats have poor policies (their policies are much better for most Trump supporters than the spray-tanned buffoon), it’s that they literally don’t know what they’re doing.

Here’s the excerpt from the other Levy’s book that really pissed me off.

In 2008 and 2012, the Obama campaign had been masters at Facebook. Rather than building on that experience, the Clinton campaign acted as if social media was some fringe unproven medium. The Clinton-Kaine team stuck to traditionalist media buys and seemed to take almost a perverse pride in being clueless novices at Facebook. When Facebook offered to provide on-site guidance on how to run campaigns at Facebook, The Clinton team spurned the opportunity. “The Hillary camp just didn’t understand the value,” says a Facebook official. “They didn’t see it.” They spent only a fraction of the Trump team’s Facebook budget. And the few Facebook ads they did use were woefully misspent. One example was a painstakingly produced two-and-a-half minute ad about her campaign — a mini-documentary of sorts — that some reason the Clinton media people felt was appropriate for Facebook. The ad resonated more with women, and as a result, the Facebook algorithm delivered it to female users. Because the Facebook ad auction rewards advertisers who target people who most would want to see that ad, it cost less to show it to an audience of exclusively women. But the Clinton team wanted it shown to both men and women, even though it would bust the budget to show the ad to men as well.

“Hillary’s team looked at that and said, I see the problem, so we’ll increase the budget to get more men,” says a tech executive familiar with the ad. “They are effectively paying more money to get the ad to people who don’t want to see it!” — Steven Levy, Facebook: The Inside Story, p. 401

As an ironic side note, I make an appearance at 3:52 in one of those ads. Look out for the tall kid with the long hair and fluffy orange beard. I promise that four years later I am much better groomed.

If this excerpt (and me in the video) made you cringe, then good.

This is a reflection of the elitism that infects the Democratic Party. “We don’t need to listen to the techies, even if they’re trying to help us!” This attitude of elitism is the reason why so many Americans despise the party in the first place.

This elitism has clearly not ended in 2016. If anything, it has only grown. Only two years after the election, Democrats decided that it was okay to support a pro-life candidate, even if it went against their stances. “It’s better for elections, even if we disagree with that.”

They also decided to choose former Vice President Joe Biden to represent them in the 2020 Election. Joe Biden, really? Were the…

• Former Harvard professor
• Rhodes scholar-turned-accomplished mayor
• Accomplished mayor and senator from New Jersey
• Successful first-generation entrepreneur
• Etc.

Not enough for you? Ugh, “not enough”. That’s what we hear all the time as young folks.

I was on the phone with one of my best friends from college last week, and I think we spent 40 minutes or more just trashing the decision. Him being a Republican, he even admitted that he probably would’ve voted for Buttigieg had he been the nominee. That’s sad. We lost a vote because the DNC decided to get nostalgic.

We even joked that neither of us have met anyone under the age of sixty who likes Joe Biden. I’ve met only two people in my life who like Joe Biden — I’m pretty sure they’re in or around their sixties. And they don’t necessarily “like” him, they just think he’s the more “pragmatic” choice that could actually win a federal election.

Don’t you remember anything from 2016, DNC? Hillary, the more “pragmatic” choice, lost to our spray-tanned buffoon for a president. The same man who clearly doesn’t give a darn about your or my life. So yeah — “pragmatic”. Good. For. You.

And where the fuck have you been, Sleepy Joe? We haven’t seen you in a minute. Or a month. I can’t remember the last time I saw you. Can you?

Last night’s reading made me wonder what would’ve happened if someone like Buttigieg or Warren had been the nominee. Would they have avoided being in the public? Doubt it. Would they have just pretended as if the election were not a thing? Doubt it.

Here’s the thing: the pandemic is a political phenomenon. It’s been reported by The New York Times — not fake news — that the president himself had evidence of COVID-19 happening in China as early as January. He decided to do jack shit about it, because, you know, ‘Muricans are so strong that we can beat basic biology. If only we acted like Singapore or South Korea, less people would’ve died.

But if one thing’s apparent, it’s this: neither Trump nor the Democrats care about people. They care about your votes, not about you.

If the Democrats actually cared about people, they would’ve chosen a different nominee, plain and simple. Maybe a nominee who wasn’t accused of committing sexual assault. Maybe a nominee who was as prepared as a Harvard professor with a plan for everything…oh wait.

The Democrats choosing Joe Biden is like the marketing department making decisions on product: it never works. Marketing is for losers, after all.