How the internet can change the tide of politics.

In November of last year, I began to pay attention to American politics a lot more than ever before. I heard about our chosen presidential candidates for both parties and how the rest of the world was calling our current election cycle a "circus." I looked into the platforms of Trump, Bernie, Hillary, and chose the one I wish to be President accordingly. However, through my research I realized something incredible about the internet and how it affected politics. It dawned on me that the internet is an archive of each of these candidates lives, and contained all of their poor political choices only a google search away. In Episode 2 of The Virtual Revolution, Aleks Krotoski discusses how the internet can connect and divide humanity in a political context, and I completely agree with her.

Birdie comic by  DrewToonz

As I previously stated, the world of American politics is new to me. However, thanks to Reddit, I've caught up to stories that revolve around our presidential candidates. The internet has benefited both Trump and Bernie, whether it be through internet memes, or articles that explain their platforms. Unfortunately for Hillary, the internet is not too kind to her. Having such a long and sketchy history in politics, the internet has managed to dig up reports, articles, and video evidence of Hillary flip-flopping on issues every other month. While Bernie and Trump have a decent understanding on how social media works, Hillary seems to believe that it's not as effective as everyone is led to believe. But it is. 

The entire political narrative has begun to shift because of scandals being spread across the internet to uninformed voters. This has led Hillary from pandering to her followers and banking on name recognition for presidency to not holding press conferences and using scripted interviews as damage control. As Krotoski's video showed, multiple governments and government officials have been exposed thanks to whistle-blowers and citizens using twitter to spread information about the injustices that are occurring in their country. This kind of thing happens on a daily basis, and I think it's building up to something big in the near future. Events like the Panama Papers  and Clinton's email hack  will eventually lead to a political revolution in our county. The reason one hasn't happened yet is because there are still millions in America who are uniformed and collectively unorganized. In the near future we will see an uprising from American citizens, but as of now, we're too busy with the latest Game of Thrones episodes and celebrity gossip. We'll get there....eventually....when it's convenient.

"Bernie" by Extra Fabulous Comics