Members of the Democratic party have realized that there is a lot they can learn from the millennials in their ranks.
The House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee is hosting a session Thursday morning with Ocasio-Cortez of New York (@AOC – 2.42 million followers) and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut (@jahimes – 76,500 followers) “on the most effective ways to engage constituents on Twitter and the importance of digital storytelling.”
…“The older generation of members and senators is pretty clueless on the social media platforms. It’s pretty clear that a lot of members have 25-year-olds in their offices,” running their social media, Himes said.
“For younger members, they think of social media as every bit of an established form of communication as print or television or radio,” said Josh Hawley, who, at 39, is the youngest U.S. senator.
…At 29, Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest member of Congress and has become something of a sensation with both sides of the aisle for her progressive views and use of social media to share opinions and policy positions. She’s attracted millions of followers, far more than the average lawmaker. Ocasio-Cortez’s office declined to comment for this story, but late Wednesday she retweeted a USA TODAY reporter and confirmed she would be teaching the class. She said it was one of the “perks of being in the Democratic Caucus.”
But what the members need to realize that it is not just the medium, the message is also important. Ocasio-Cortez has a large following because she is saying things that resonate with a lot of people and also knows how to say it.
Here she is delivering her first speech on the floor of the House and she pulled no punches, where she slams Donald Trump for causing the shutdown, saying, ”It is not normal to hold 800,000 workers’ paychecks hostage. It is not normal to shut down the government when we don’t get what we want.“
This is the most important point to make. I guess I can’t speak for all millennials, but this one values authenticity above all else (besides the normal desire to hear a message I like :P).
There certainly is an approach to Twitter that’s different from radio and TV, it’s more stream-of-conscious and more immediate, and more capable of supporting one-liners. But honestly the worst thing someone can to is to try to treat social media like “the hip new thing all the kids are into.” You can only ever talk down to people that way. Hillary Clinton’s “pokemon go-to-the-polls” fell so flat not because it was a bad pun (it was a bad pun, but I firmly believe someone could pull that one off well), but because it was so clearly a “speak down to the kids with something they like” moment. It was clearly a tactic, and a cringy one at that.
We millennials are smart. We know when we’re being pandered to, some of our favorite entertainment is criticism of media. A crotchety old person being a crotchety old person in an authentic way is infinitely more acceptable than a crotchety old person pretending to be something they aren’t to try to persuade us.
Tangential to that is like the difference between Bernie Sanders saying something goofy while speaking, and Trump doing the same.
Bernie: “He just let the cat out of the box! Or whatever the phrase is…”
Trump: “…through their lives…and though their lives were cut short…”
Trump: “The sacrifice every day for the furniture…and future of their children.”
And let’s not forget that one guy that Trump wants us to believe doesn’t care if he’s called CJ or DJ.
Bernie says something dumb, oops I goofed, let’s move on. We chuckle at silly grandpa Bernie and get back to business.
Trump says something dumb, and he is reflexively incapable of admitting to a mistake. So many times he’s verbally tripped on television, and he tries to pass it off as deliberate. The phoniness is so blatantly obvious, only a delusional psychopath could possibly think it actually fools people. Everything else in your brain grinds into a halt and is taken over “Really? Do you really think that you’re pulling that off?”
Exhibit #3 gazillion for why The Dump is a complete failure as a human being, not just as President.