How did we get here?

We have an education and information problem largely exacerbated by social media.

It's been a few days and as people's initial emotional reactions fade, a lot of folks are left asking how the hell did this happen? How did we get here? How could an extremely qualified, well spoken, intelligent woman spreading a message of hope lose to a man that was convicted of fraud, found liable for sexual assault, convicted of 34 felonies, tried to stage a coup when he lost an election, stole national secrets when he did leave office, and ran a campaign based on racism, sexism, xenophobia, and hate.

Well, I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers for you, but I do have an informed opinion to share.

It is not Kamala Harris’s fault

First, and foremost, I want to start by saying this is not Kamala Harris's fault. That woman stepped up to the plate knowing she would have to pull off a miracle. The campaign she ran was nothing short of incredible. In just a little over 100 days, she moved the needle so far in polling and gave the democratic ticket a shot they would have never had under Biden. The enthusiasm for her, and the ground game across the country was palpable. She broke the norm in attempts to reach voters by joining hosts on various podcasts and flooding social media like we’ve never seen with just the right amount of fun memes to get folks engaged and excited, but still remain professional and not disrespectful. 

Maybe most importantly, women in America watched her walk the perfect line, a line any woman who has held or vied for any type of authority or leadership position understands. She was poised and a consummate professional. She was confident, but not so much that she would come off arrogant. She showed she could be tough and assertive without coming off aggressive. She showed passion, but not so much that she could be called emotional or crazy. She was constantly held to a higher standard than her opponent and she never once complained or uttered a word about it. She lifted her head up, and told us that hard work is good work, and to keep fighting.

 I could go on about what I think she did incredibly well, but I'll leave you with this. This was not a Kamala problem; this was and is an America problem. We must hold up the mirror and look at our country to understand how Kamala Harris lost this election to Donald Trump.

We have an education and information problem largely exacerbated by social media

There are several opinions flying around democrat circles and media outlets at the moment on what went wrong. These include Biden dropped out too late, the democrats didn’t primary, she only had 100 days, she was too moderate and lost her base, the protest vote for Palestine kept her from winning, and the list continues on like this. I’m not going to dive into any of that today.  Like I said, I don’t think it’s anything she did as a candidate and while yes, I do think the Democratic party needs a postmortem, it’s not what I think is the biggest issue. 

I believe America is the issue and it all comes down to the fact that we have an education and information problem. I'm not talking about the attack on public education or postsecondary institutions, although that is a huge problem.

I’m talking about the majority of Americans being extremely uninformed having no idea how government, economics, or science actually work. Combine that with the ability for social media to rapidly spread information, and it's no wonder we are in the midst of a disinformation and misinformation crisis. When you don’t know how something works, it’s easy to believe anything, especially when you see it over and over again thanks to an algorithm.

The social media game has changed since the 2020 election for the worse. Donald Trump creating Truth social in February of 2022 and Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter (now X) in April of 2022 drastically changed the social media game for Trump and his allies. When Trump spread dangerous lies about January 6th and the results of the election, Twitter banned him. With him and his buddy now owning platforms, there was nothing standing in their way this go around.

For the last two years Trump and Musk have not only done nothing to stop the spread of dangerous disinformation, but they’ve also purposely amplified it. Musk has used AI to boost election conspiracy theories and false stories about Kamala Harris on X. Him and Donald Trump have, of course, also shared these types of post themselves and repeated them at rallies and in-person events. As if that is not disconcerting enough, Russia paid right wing influencers to spread false information to impact U.S. politics ultimately meaning we also have national security concerns.

Take the onslaught of this madness, and combine it with an uninformed populace, and we have folks acting out of manufactured fear and complete ignorance. Some are living in an alternate reality where objective truth, data, science, and experts don't exist. The worst part about it all is that they are also casting their vote based on this alternate reality.

Another outcome of the massive disinformation campaign is the radicalization of young white men, which definitely makes my top ten list of most concerning trends in America. This group of men are doing things like calling for the elimination of the 19th amendment (a woman's right to vote), making posts after the election like "your body, my choice" and "men win again, we will never have a woman President", and protesting on college campuses with signs saying women are property (the photo above is from a college campus in Texas just one day after Trump won the election). And I know what you’re thinking, this group is fringe and small and without any political power. Well, I’m here to unfortunately remind you that we know the internet enables movements, even radical ones to grow. 

Let’s just look at the Make America Healthy Again movement from white suburban women. Maybe you wouldn’t call this movement radical, although I would argue abandoning science and medicine is radical. Radical or not, the internet has enabled this movement to grow legs and sprint. What started decades ago as a small group of anti-vaxxers has grown into a full-blown movement that quite possibly helped sway an entire election cycle.

If you're unaware of this movement, RFK Jr. has become its’ leader. Millions of white women voted for Trump with the hopes of RFK Jr. being given a position to ban certain substances from foods, remove vaccine mandates, and make raw milk legal.  Yes, this is all a real movement that include millions of white women, and if you've never seen or heard much about it, thank your social media algorithm.  I went searching for them and have unfortunately now seen so many white women proudly making pro-Trump content touting pseudo-science and misinformation as the basis for making their kids and America healthy again.

From the wellness influencers to the radicalized college men, social media has played an enormous role in the outcome of this election. Unfortunately, Trump and his people own these platforms that spread radical ideologies, disinformation, and Russian propaganda that millions of Americans consume, and we have no means to stop them from distributing whatever they want to the masses.

All this to say, we have an education and information problem. We know that the more educated a person is, the more likely they are to vote or align with the democratic party. There are several reasons for that, but one of the main ones in present day America is that they can see through disinformation, lies, conspiracies, and pseudo-science as well as Donald Trump's, MAGA’s, RFK Jr.’s, and others’ bullshit.  There is a reason Donald Trump said, "I love the poorly educated."

So, where do we go from here? How do we fix this? Stay tuned as we to try to figure it out.