FaceBook. Twitter. LinkedIn. YouTube. StumbleUpon. Yelp. FourSquare. Digg. GetGlue. FormSpring. TwitPic. Tumbler. Delicious. Email. Blogger. WordPress. … to name a few, literally.
Even before President Obama declared his candidacy for re-election via an email to his 2008 supporters with an embedded video, I knew social media was going to be key in the upcoming presidential election cycle. But when Republican Tim Pawlenty announced on FaceBook and Republican Mitt Romney announced in a tweet, I realized it’s even bigger.
Politicians have migrated, practically en masse, toward digital media. It only makes sense; even the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhism leader, has a Twitter account and uses TwitPic to post his pictures there.
But here’s the thing … the Dalai Lama has great content. Spiritual messages, serene pictures, encouraging quotes. He has a positive message, messages for everyone whether you’re Buddhist or not.
Politicians? Not so much. Some of the more recent messages have been outrageous, inflammatory, and anything but for general consumption. The Republican message as of late has been laced with hate.
Their front runner, “the Donald” may be an entertaining reality (wink wink) show host but he is basically calling Americans who voted for the President, stupid because we were bamboozled by the biggest con since the beginning of time. Not only is Trump attacking the President, he is attacking the institution of the presidency itself.
He and anyone who mentions the whole “birther” business looses credibility immediately. Does anyone even believe this so-called controversy is really about a piece of paper? This issue has been discussed, investigated, and refuted.
Although the First Amendment and social media allow people to say what they want, we don’t have to let their asinine comments go unchallenged. So sign up for politician’s campaign emails, follow them on Twitter and friend them on FaceBook. Evaluate the content in their posts and then engage with them. Go to their events and ask questions.
These are people trying to speak for us and represent us. President Obama says “it begins with us” and I agree.
