this is the 2016 election we’ve seen how
social media has degraded our political
system from Russian BOTS to the
president’s midnight tweets it’s easy to
see the harm it’s doing but if you also
notice that it’s made our democracy more
diverse and transparent I’ve worked in
government and campaigns for over a
decade and I have I used to believe only
a certain kind of person can read for
office but only one kind of experience
matter to voters an Ivy League degree
lots of money famous last name being
mail basically the guys on Mount
Rushmore
but that was before Facebook and
Instagram and Twitter allowed
politicians to speak directly to voters
before that they had to go through these
traditional media gatekeepers like 60
minutes and Meet the Press and all the
sunday shows and those were impossible
to book unless you had connections I
grew up in New Hampshire a state with
outsized impact on national politics
because every four years it hosts the
presidential primary which means if you
had presidential ambitions you probably
came to my school or my neighborhood to
make your case I remember Bill Clinton’s
motorcade driving by my yard sale and
Bob Dole hanging out in the cafeteria
and Bill Bradley shooting hoops in the
gym and despite this front row seat to
politics
it just never appealed to me of course
of course part of that was my age but
the other part was that they seemed so
scripted and unrelatable that changed
when I was about 19 after America
declared war with Iraq I woke up one
morning and my college dorm and someone
had left the TV on this governor from
Vermont was on Meet the Press Howard
Dean and he said a rock hadn’t attacked
us on 9/11 our justification for war was
wrong and my generation was going to
deal with the consequences of that
conflict
I had never seen a politician speak so
forcefully against the war and for the
first time of my young life I wanted to
be a part of a campaign so I called his
campaign every day for weeks until
finally they said sure you could knock
on stranger’s doors in the freezing cold
for no money at all yes I felt like I
was part of a movement and believe it or
not in 2004 I was Howard Dean did
something that no one had done he raised
low dollar donations on the Internet
which gave him the ability to run a
national campaign as an outsider but he
still had to go through those
traditional media gatekeepers social
media wouldn’t be what it is today for a
very long time
Facebook wouldn’t even be available to
the public for two years and the thing
is those traditional media gatekeepers
they weren’t a big fan of Howard Dean’s
off-script speeches some in this Treme
remember his most infamous after the
Iowa caucus it went a little something
like this we’re going to South Carolina
we’re going to Oregon we’re going to
Washington DC to take back the White
House oh yeah
so that so-called Dean scream doomed his
campaign he was seen as unhinged and too
angry right as you sit here 14 years
later you may think too angry that’s
Tuesday and you’re right right now our
current president holds rallies almost
every Tuesday where people scream in
unison lock her up so how did we get
here
social media changed the game it broke
the way the politicians could
communicate no longer we can’t talking
points break through the clutter of
Twitter anything poll-tested people just
tuned it out when I ran for State
Representative in my hometown 12 years
ago I doubted that voters wanted a woman
who was working two waitressing jobs and
had college loan debt to represent them
however a waitress with college loan
debt might be the kind of representative
who understands why we need a living
wage
and student loan relief but I didn’t see
my experience as an asset and even if I
had I had no way of getting that message
out I misread my strengths as
liabilities simply because I didn’t look
like those guys on Mount Rushmore or any
other politician I’d seen and maybe
that’s why I lost campaigns today are
different candidates are using viral
videos to tell their experiences with
issues ranging from homelessness teen
pregnancy debt depression voters are
seeing these stories and they’re feeling
galvanized by stories they relate to and
they’re giving money to help move those
campaigns along you know there’s long
been a practice in politics called
opposition research it’s where your
opponent digs up all the dirt they can
find on you
but in the age of social media that
could be useless because it turns out
showing vulnerability is shrewd politics
everyone likes a story and everyone has
a story to tell
today’s candidates will not accept that
their experience is disqualifying simply
because no one like them has run before
look at Stacey Abrams she’s hoping to be
the first african-american governor of
Georgia her opponent said she’s in debt
she’s in qualified she said yeah like
millions of Americans I have debt but I
won’t feel ashame that I needed an alone
to get an education or to support myself
and with her response she shut down that
line of criticism and made herself more
relatable look at beta O’Rourke
he’s documented almost every moment of
his campaign on social media and it’s
introduced him to millions of Americans
and helped him to raise an unprecedented
40 million dollars in three months
even if these campaigns are unsuccessful
this time they will have changed how
communicate campaigns communicate going
forward just as Howard Dean did with
fundraising in 2004 but beyond campaigns
social media has made government more
transparent who would have thought our
72 year old president would get every
member of Congress to use Twitter
but every time he tweets the traditional
media come asking for a response so the
need for conviction authenticity
responsiveness
I know requirements of elected officials
because if you don’t respond your scene
is totally out of touch you’re like how
does she know that well I’m currently a
communications director for a member of
Congress and you would not want to know
how many times a week we get calls about
presidential tweets around Memorial Day
of this year the hashtag where the
children went viral
the Trump administration had begun
separating immigrant children from their
families at the u.s. border our phones
our emails our social media platforms
Werth flooded by constituents who are
outraged by this inhumanity the
congresswoman who I work for it was also
outraged she and I flew to Brownsville
Texas and saw the detention centers for
ourselves along the way we documented
everything videos tweets and in her
capacity as an elected official she was
the eyes and ears of her constituents
and when she got back to DC she landed
voice to their outrage by backing
legislation to address this ongoing
crisis social media has created a
dialogue that’s never existed between
elected officials and those they
represent it’s opened the door for
people who thought they could never run
and it served as a microphone for those
who’ve never had one most importantly
it’s changing the face of politics maybe
maybe it could even change those faces on Mount Rushmore thank you
social media has degraded our political
system from Russian BOTS to the
president’s midnight tweets it’s easy to
see the harm it’s doing but if you also
notice that it’s made our democracy more
diverse and transparent I’ve worked in
government and campaigns for over a
decade and I have I used to believe only
a certain kind of person can read for
office but only one kind of experience
matter to voters an Ivy League degree
lots of money famous last name being
mail basically the guys on Mount
Rushmore
but that was before Facebook and
Instagram and Twitter allowed
politicians to speak directly to voters
before that they had to go through these
traditional media gatekeepers like 60
minutes and Meet the Press and all the
sunday shows and those were impossible
to book unless you had connections I
grew up in New Hampshire a state with
outsized impact on national politics
because every four years it hosts the
presidential primary which means if you
had presidential ambitions you probably
came to my school or my neighborhood to
make your case I remember Bill Clinton’s
motorcade driving by my yard sale and
Bob Dole hanging out in the cafeteria
and Bill Bradley shooting hoops in the
gym and despite this front row seat to
politics
it just never appealed to me of course
of course part of that was my age but
the other part was that they seemed so
scripted and unrelatable that changed
when I was about 19 after America
declared war with Iraq I woke up one
morning and my college dorm and someone
had left the TV on this governor from
Vermont was on Meet the Press Howard
Dean and he said a rock hadn’t attacked
us on 9/11 our justification for war was
wrong and my generation was going to
deal with the consequences of that
conflict
I had never seen a politician speak so
forcefully against the war and for the
first time of my young life I wanted to
be a part of a campaign so I called his
campaign every day for weeks until
finally they said sure you could knock
on stranger’s doors in the freezing cold
for no money at all yes I felt like I
was part of a movement and believe it or
not in 2004 I was Howard Dean did
something that no one had done he raised
low dollar donations on the Internet
which gave him the ability to run a
national campaign as an outsider but he
still had to go through those
traditional media gatekeepers social
media wouldn’t be what it is today for a
very long time
Facebook wouldn’t even be available to
the public for two years and the thing
is those traditional media gatekeepers
they weren’t a big fan of Howard Dean’s
off-script speeches some in this Treme
remember his most infamous after the
Iowa caucus it went a little something
like this we’re going to South Carolina
we’re going to Oregon we’re going to
Washington DC to take back the White
House oh yeah
so that so-called Dean scream doomed his
campaign he was seen as unhinged and too
angry right as you sit here 14 years
later you may think too angry that’s
Tuesday and you’re right right now our
current president holds rallies almost
every Tuesday where people scream in
unison lock her up so how did we get
here
social media changed the game it broke
the way the politicians could
communicate no longer we can’t talking
points break through the clutter of
Twitter anything poll-tested people just
tuned it out when I ran for State
Representative in my hometown 12 years
ago I doubted that voters wanted a woman
who was working two waitressing jobs and
had college loan debt to represent them
however a waitress with college loan
debt might be the kind of representative
who understands why we need a living
wage
and student loan relief but I didn’t see
my experience as an asset and even if I
had I had no way of getting that message
out I misread my strengths as
liabilities simply because I didn’t look
like those guys on Mount Rushmore or any
other politician I’d seen and maybe
that’s why I lost campaigns today are
different candidates are using viral
videos to tell their experiences with
issues ranging from homelessness teen
pregnancy debt depression voters are
seeing these stories and they’re feeling
galvanized by stories they relate to and
they’re giving money to help move those
campaigns along you know there’s long
been a practice in politics called
opposition research it’s where your
opponent digs up all the dirt they can
find on you
but in the age of social media that
could be useless because it turns out
showing vulnerability is shrewd politics
everyone likes a story and everyone has
a story to tell
today’s candidates will not accept that
their experience is disqualifying simply
because no one like them has run before
look at Stacey Abrams she’s hoping to be
the first african-american governor of
Georgia her opponent said she’s in debt
she’s in qualified she said yeah like
millions of Americans I have debt but I
won’t feel ashame that I needed an alone
to get an education or to support myself
and with her response she shut down that
line of criticism and made herself more
relatable look at beta O’Rourke
he’s documented almost every moment of
his campaign on social media and it’s
introduced him to millions of Americans
and helped him to raise an unprecedented
40 million dollars in three months
even if these campaigns are unsuccessful
this time they will have changed how
communicate campaigns communicate going
forward just as Howard Dean did with
fundraising in 2004 but beyond campaigns
social media has made government more
transparent who would have thought our
72 year old president would get every
member of Congress to use Twitter
but every time he tweets the traditional
media come asking for a response so the
need for conviction authenticity
responsiveness
I know requirements of elected officials
because if you don’t respond your scene
is totally out of touch you’re like how
does she know that well I’m currently a
communications director for a member of
Congress and you would not want to know
how many times a week we get calls about
presidential tweets around Memorial Day
of this year the hashtag where the
children went viral
the Trump administration had begun
separating immigrant children from their
families at the u.s. border our phones
our emails our social media platforms
Werth flooded by constituents who are
outraged by this inhumanity the
congresswoman who I work for it was also
outraged she and I flew to Brownsville
Texas and saw the detention centers for
ourselves along the way we documented
everything videos tweets and in her
capacity as an elected official she was
the eyes and ears of her constituents
and when she got back to DC she landed
voice to their outrage by backing
legislation to address this ongoing
crisis social media has created a
dialogue that’s never existed between
elected officials and those they
represent it’s opened the door for
people who thought they could never run
and it served as a microphone for those
who’ve never had one most importantly
it’s changing the face of politics maybe
maybe it could even change those faces on Mount Rushmore thank you
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