The Next Big Thing in The Social Media Revolution?
The revolution will not be televised
In a nutshell, I've had this feeling in my gut that social media is going to be used someday to start the next great war. I quit all forms of mainstream social media over a year ago because of this, and in that time I've been making observations about people in the world around me; I've been trying to articulate why I feel this way, and I think I'm finally pulling enough information together to for an argument. It would be extremely helpful to hear everyone else's thoughts on my political fan theory.
A couple of days ago I expressed an opinion about Donald Trump to a friend - that while he ducks and dives in general, he isn't the person we ultimately have to worry about. Someone will take his place. My friend pointed out that he is the definition of a heel: a person designed to be hated. He does awful, despicable things on purpose in order to get the crowd to make some noise. So why pick him as president? It doesn't make sense that a candidate this disliked became president. He has a higher disapproval rating than Bush did. Yes, obviously he won because on election night, the majority of undecided voters either tossed a coin, didn't vote, voted for the lesser of two evils, or voted for a third party, and a combination of all of these made for a very interesting night. No matter who won that night, we would have had riots and protests... except more people probably would have died if Hillary won because conservatives, as a whole, have more guns than the liberal population.
Women's day
It didn't click until women's day this year. I heard that women across the world were supposed to be protesting on women's day by not coming in to work. If I were on social media, I would have known. So I researched the history of women's day. It was the first holiday started by the Communist party following the Bolshevik Revolution. In the past, if it was observed by anyone within the last 20 years, it was nothing more than a footnote in history.
Social media is encouraging people to pay attention these days. You'll see ads and clickbait telling you that there are "10 reasons you should celebrate women's day" or "7 ways to celebrate women's day." This is nothing new, but it's been circulating since before the election. The election was fought over social media. News channels featured tweets during the live debates. Of course, more people wanted to be involved in order to get their 3 seconds of fame. Social media began rewarding people for arguing about the election, and it worked. In a sense, it feels like the mass public is being groomed by use of social media.
So what now? You have all your people, so what are you going to do with them? There has to be a reason for controlling the public like this.
Historically speaking, a country elected their "worst" official when they became fed up with the system, and began a revolution. Stalin came to power after chasing out Trotsky and Lenin, and they came to power because of the Bolshevik Revolution. Hitler came to power in an election after Germany went through their terrible depression. People hated the way things were going, so they picked someone radically different. People keep saying that Trump is the Stalin or Hitler, but unlike those two he wasn't elected after people wanted to stage a grand-scale revolution. I believe he is the setup, the clickbait to start a revolution.
Future revolution
Now if I had to guess who would take his place, my bets are on some up-and-coming libertarian that will probably bubble up on social media in the next few months. I'm guessing it will be a libertarian because they appeal to what democrats want socially, and what republicans want economically. If it were me pulling the strings, I would have gotten the word out about libertarians via social media months ago. On a side note, we probably wouldn't have had a libertarian in the debates at all if it weren't for the notoriety on social media. Look at how many people voted for a third party this election... all those people who were castrated on social media for "voting with their conscience." The 2-5% difference in votes could have changed the election results.
Anyway, I'm getting this feeling that in the next few months, people will have a new, younger "Bernie Sanders" Jesus figure. People will love them, social media will encourage a revolution with this person as its face, and Trump will be taken down in favor of someone who "genuinely wants what's best for everyone." I mean, how could they be bad, right? We've watched their whole career start with social media. They want what's best for us. They aren't a paid politician because they're like us... right?
If it were me, I'd find a way to use this figure to make people want to change the constitution (because they are amendments and by definition can be changed), and reform the voting process... because clearly this is what got us into a shit storm, right?
Maybe eliminating the amendment that allows only 2 terms for a president to be in office will help. Maybe we can lower the standards of electing a president. Maybe, with enough people and enough voting power, we can eliminate the need for a president all together. Mind you, it would take A LOT of people to vote in favor for these things... but look at how much social media has affected this election. It's possible to make people want to do these things if we use social media.
Mind you, the next person who takes office after Trump might not be bad at all! I'm just picturing the polar opposite of Trump: a liberal who wants to imprison neo-Nazis because of their political beliefs. I'm all in favor of arresting people who physically harm others because of their beliefs, but arresting someone because they favor the alt-right is no different than arresting someone who believes in the alt-left. People insist it can't come to that, but it seems the trend in social media amongst liberals is to say "peace and love for all... unless you're a bigot, in which case I'll harass you verbally until you see things my way, because I'm fighting the noble cause." It wouldn't be the first time citizens were arrested for believing in things the state didn't like. It'll just be harder to argue because "they're the bad guys here! We just want a world of peace." Yeah... that's what they all say.
So:
Do any of you feel like a revolution is on the horizon? If so, how would it go down?
Yes, and personally I think the revolution will start here in South Africa. The whole world is corrupt these days but OUR president takes the cherry and the whole cake...
South Africa, Trump, Le Pen, Brexit ... the people are rising!!
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This is a great read. I feel like extremism of any kind is a problem -- doesn't matter if it's liberal or conservative, or religious, or whatever. Unfortunately, the people with the most extreme views are the ones who garner the most attention through social media, and then through mainstream media. It's never the guy sitting somewhere in the middle, offering up solutions that most people can agree to if they're open to a bit of compromise.
Sometimes, I think people are drawn to the extremes because it's easier to see things as black and white. Then they can just pick a side and stick to it and stop thinking. Because sometimes it's exhausting to think your way through all the grey areas of an issue.
Extremes draw on the emotions which push peoples buttons ... hence the rise of 'post truth' in the modern world as the new buzz word!