What The Election of 1952 Tells Us About Social Media's Failure

What The Election of 1952 Tells Us About Social Media's Failure to Grow Political Influence of the Average American

In 1952, the United States elected in a landslide the first Republican President in 20 years. How he arrived at that role is more fascinating than what he did when he got there.

POLITICS VS. PUBLIC SERVICE

In 1952, long before computers and social media, and for some, long before television - there was a social campaign underway. It was the Draft Eisenhower campaign, and it was the first successful political draft of the 20th Century.

Eisenhower stated many, many times that he didn't want to run for President. He was content as a general and hero of WWII. Even President Truman, convinced that Eisenhower would run as a Democrat, tried to press him to run, all the while he replied with a resounding "no".

So people who believed he would be a great President tried a different approach - they would get the people to demand it.

This was a different era - politics was still seen as a "public service", that Eisenhower himself said he would not feel comfortable turning down if the American People determined he would be the best man for the job.

So how would they be able to convince a man, in a era with no social media or quick communication, that the people wanted him?

I LIKE IKE

The TV show Mad Men outlines some pretty impressive old school marketing tactics. They likely didn't mention that the very type of marketing they described was used to help elect a President.

"I Like Ike" (named after Eisenhower's nickname, Ike), was a grassroots movement that became a symbol of the efforts to drive Eisenhower to run - developed by a marketing businessman who later became Secretary of Commerce under Nixon. It was launched in 1951 by a few Republican Governors and Senators, but was fueled by a citizenry who was passionately in favor of America's last wartime hero who purchased the merchandise like candy.

Still, Eisenhower rejected calls to run. Instead, the Democrats and Republicans were still moving forward with their candidates as expected.

Then, in January of 1952, Eisenhower's name was added to the New Hampshire Republican Primary - without his permission and with no marketing or fanfare.

24 Newspapers soon endorsed Eisenhower, including the New York Times, despite having not announced a bid to run. Millions of Americans purchased I Like Ike paraphernalia (sounds like Make America Great Again hats of 2016), driving forward the notion that "Ike" was the people's candidate.

"SERENADE TO IKE"

Even with all of this, Eisenhower didn't believe the hype. He thought the media was exaggerating. After all, you couldn't track likes and metrics in 1952. How did he know it wasn't just the elites pressuring him?

The I Like Ike movement held a massive rally in Madison Square Garden - at the time a capacity of 16,000 - and 25,000 Americans showed up to show their support, refusing to leave even when the Fire Marshall asked them to leave. Famous businesswoman and aviator Jacqueline Cochran flew to Paris a few days later to show Eisenhower Serenade to Ike, a tribute film she had made - ending with a toast "To the President of the United States.

Then, in March, having not campaigned or spent any money, Eisenhower beat his Republican Primary opponent Robert A. Taft 50% to 38% in the New Hampshire primary (his opponent had spent precious time and money there). A few days later, he received 106,000 write in votes (some as Isenhowr or just "Ike") in Minnesota, only 20,000 behind the on-ballot candidate in the State.

Eisenhower was now convinced - the people did want him. The movement was real. The rest, as they say, is history.

SOCIAL MEDIA'S POTENTIAL

Social Media is often praised as a way to connect people. A way to deliver ideas more rapidly. Some argue so far as to say that Social Media has reshaped the political climate, and led to major changes in how politicians campaign, how entertainers entertain, and how people interact.

People will cite the ability of "sharing" memes and statuses throughout the internet, which can garner hundreds of thousands of likes and build a narrative, as evidence that people have more of a voice now than they ever had before.

But how much of that voice is actually reaching its target? How much have Americans really seen their ability to change their fates expand tangibly through Social Media?

In 1952, long before social media, millions proved that Americans as a unified voice could change the Country. 106,000 people woke up in Minnesota and wrote in a candidate who wasn't even on the ballot.

Why was that? Was it because there weren't hundreds of comments on Social Media telling people that their vote was "wasted"? Was it because people were more aware of civics, or just more willing to be involved? Was it because people had to communicate more in person, and thus ideas could still permeate in a very different way?

Even with social media and ubiquitous TV sets, third party candidates, let alone "drafted candidates", have immense trouble raising awareness.

People will argue that Ike had the establishment behind him, so of COURSE it was easy for the idea of him running could permeate - today, the establishment holds back independent ideas. But therein lies the problem - the promise of social media was supposed to be independent information.

How is social media useful, if it can't even evolve our ability to communicate and affect change beyond what we could 60 years ago?

WHAT WENT WRONG?

In 1952, the American People, sparked by an idea, fueled an 8-year Presidency. Today, ideas are generated on social media every single day, but are unable to gain traction. Those that do, are polarized and dismissed.

There are hollow echoes of similar activity today - President-Elect Trump's rallies and usage of social media to directly reach the people, being two of them - but they are often misunderstood and manipulated by those who want to rebrand the messages for their own purposes.

The issue lies in the very nature of social media. The Average American citizen isn't aware - but on things like Facebook and Twitter, THEY are the product. They want users to feel comfortable so that they keep coming back. People don't typically come back if they are challenged - they come back if they see things they agree with.

This is why, today, even though we have the tools as American citizens to do what we did in 1952, without the backing of the establishment - we won't. We can't agree on doing it, let alone how to do it.

Perhaps if civics hadn't been all but abandoned prior to social media's rise, we would see a much different situation. Then again, perhaps even with civic awareness, social media itself is the cause, not the symptom, of the current political disconnect. Would America of 1952 have been more or less likely to nominate Ike if social media had existed back then? Or would everyone have talked each other out of it?

We can never answer that question, but hopefully, with the internet entering it's mature phase and people becoming more aware of fake news, we will start to see a shift back towards awareness - in spite of our own desires to remain in the bliss of our own echo chambers.
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Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right: The Story of the Moderate Millennials

The rope can only take so much before it snaps.

In a world of progressives vs. reactionaries, moderate millennials stand planted firmly in the center in an endless tug of war. Unfortunately for us, nobody likes the middle anymore.


It is rare to find an undecided millennial from a voting standpoint. Most decided since they were 18 that the Democratic Party would have their support for life, it seems. That the GOP is the party of the "old" and "backwards". The events of the past week, however, have reinforced my indecision towards which ideology I place myself.

Last night's particular GOP debate happened to be taking place on the eve of the resignation of the President of the University of Missouri as well as some protests at Yale about something stupid. (Don't believe me? Click the link. I dare you. Scarier than Halloween itself.)


Millennials are obsessed with being "progressive". And why wouldn't they be? "Progress" sounds great. It means we are moving past where we currently are into a bright new future. The one that we were promised growing up of a multi-cultural and post-racial society.


Anything that stands in the way of this progress will be destroyed. Just ask that Yale professor.


Herein lays my dilemma. I completely agree with supporting the middle class and a sane foreign policy. I also believe in free speech. It seems at this point I, like other moderates, have to choose between the two, and I don't want to have to.

I didn't simply chose the title of the blog to be this song lyric to be catchy - I think it illustrates a point very well about the state of the fringe wings of our culture. I will go in depth on each side to explain.


PROGRESSIVE CLOWNS

The recently-released video game Halo 5 has a villain named Cortana, an artificial intelligence who was alongside the hero for 4 games prior and has come back to rid the world of all evil. Her goals are laudable - peace in the galaxy. Her means are not - she seeks to actively punish anyone who stands against her perspective. This is the way to peace. Silencing - or outright eliminating - opposition. Only she understands what needs to be done to make society right again.

Similarly, VIKI from I, Robot had a plan to do the same using an army of human-built machines to enforce martial law in order to help eliminate violence from human society. Her mission was to protect humanity. Her idea of doing so was to eliminate all choice in the matter.

Cortana and VIKI are the perfect villain for this generation. They represents the hypocritical, passionate, but full of well-intention liberal millennials.


Going back to my prior analogy, a clown is funny, but knows exactly what it is trying to be. This is someone who is unabashed in their behavior because they are getting paid to do so.


At this point, this is how I would describe the left. Specifically the liberals of my generation. They have become a walking, talking mockery of what being a progressive is supposed to be about. And they are proud of it.

VIKI from I, Robot

The students at Yale knew exactly what they were doing when they were berating that professor. They sincerely believed they were doing the right thing. More power to them; that is what free speech is all about.


However, it is also about an exchange of ideas. About debate. About different viewpoints coming together and compromise. With progressive millennials, there is no debating. You either apologize for your transgressions or you suffer their internet-fueled wrath. So consumed are they with what they see as progress that they don't stop to think about the fact that the world their parents have so carefully crafted for them with the "everybody wins" mentality is not the world they will be entering after college.

For them, of course there is no compromise! We are talking about people's rights! We should never compromise when it comes to people's rights!

I completely agree. In fact, we have an entire document, The Constitution, in place to protect people's rights. It isn't perfect, and has not always worked in the past, so I can understand my generation's hesitance to trust it. What we can't do is say that one person's right to free speech is any less than someone else's right to not see an offensive image. If we start entering that territory, we have started to put one person's rights above another. Once we do that, we are no better than the generations of our ancestors before us.

Unfortunately, it looks like some of my generation has already gone the way of Cortana and decided that they know best how to solve our problems, and it starts with silencing those who oppose them.


I am not sure when the rubicon was crossed and at what point our generation crossed the line towards proto-fascism, but it has occurred and it frightens me.


Before I get raging emails about me comparing what they did to fascism, let me illustrate the point for you. The Nazi party was not the "government" of Germany until 1933. Sure, they had
some seats in the Reichstag. But they weren't the majority (and certainly Hitler wasn't dictator) before the Enabling Act.


However, during the years leading up to their victory, before even they had any seats in the parliament, they were still very active. They were physically and emotionally abusing those who disagreed with their beliefs, publicly and privately. They were creating a culture of fear in Germany, where people were afraid to speak about certain subjects for fear of Nazi reprisal.


To be clear, this was not the government of Germany doing this; these were private citizens who simply took it upon themselves to enforce their views as a brute gang that nobody, or at least very few, had the will to counter. Sound familiar? By the time anyone did, it was too late.


I mention that because the current progressive mantra is "the constitution means you can't get arrested for saying what you feel, not that you don't have to deal with consequences of what you say!" This is true, nobody is getting arrested for their views (yet). But like in Germany in the 30's, sometimes it isn't the government we have to be afraid of.


I do want to clarify that I often believe in the message of the progressives. Combating generations of systemic and systematic oppression is hard, and we have to work hard to make sure it happens. But delivery of that message is equally important, and at this point I am not comfortable that the current "progressives" will be able to maintain dignity and respect for the institutions they claim to be trying to fix.

As such, these are the clowns to my left who I simply do not nor will ever identify with. The pseudo-intellectual boys and girls who believe in hindering free speech and assailing those who disagree with them "for the greater good". I use boys and girls instead of men and women consciously; to call them the latter would be a disservice to the level of maturity those terms are meant to represent. There are millions of mature progressives who understand that this isn't how you treat people. Unfortunately they are being drowned out.

To make it worse, there is no "moderate" to many of them. They see "moderation" as part of the problem, as part of the "compromising" on people's rights. As such, their vitriol turns me and many other moderates away. We simply are not welcome among their ranks.

RIGHT WING JOKE



Unlike the clowns, who understand why they are funny, jokers are individuals who are funny without intent. I can think of no better way to describe the modern right wing than this: an enormous joke that is carrying on through life as though they are oblivious to their own idiocy. We are living through the death of the Republican party and aside from being fascinating to watch, it is utterly disheartening.

The debate last night was likely the most tame and issues-based that any of them have been. Even so, these caricatures of Republicanism seem to simply have embraced the ghost of Carnegie and Rockefeller and have decided that, voters be damned, they are going to tell us all that we don't work hard enough and make too much money anyway.

While on the opposite side we have progressives, on this side we have reactionaries. Increasingly, it seems that any form of moderation in the Republican Party is being stamped out with equal ferocity as on the left. This was most recently manifested in John Boehner, an absolute moderate in an extremist world, announcing he was leaving the position of speaker of the house.

Sometimes in the 80's, religion took over the Republican Party. Sometimes in the 2000s, the religious right had eliminated all but figurehead opposition to their reign. Today, what we have is the equivalent to a Theocratic party in many ways, where "which of your plans would God approve?" is a reasonable question to ask.

The problem isn't just conservative vs. liberal, but generational. Gen X and Baby Boomers simply look at societal issues very differently, as evidenced by millennial outlook on police (much more in line with the typical African American view) vs. older generations views on police (they can do no wrong!) These issues are pushing the older generations towards the right wing even if they didn't used to consider themselves as such.

Like many millennials, I do not profess to be overly religious. That reason alone should eliminate 99% of reasons to vote for the modern Republican Party. However, that is not the sole reason for my ire against the modern right wing. Instead, it is the fact that they seem to have entirely forgotten history with regards to corporations, and seem to actively fight intelligence in any sense of the word, replacing mathematics and science with God.

The Gilded Age was a time period in U.S. history where corporations ran amok. Progressives of that era (NOT "progressives" of today) fought very, very hard to obtain what we take for granted today - Unionization, 5-day work week, vacation, etc. Republicans avoid outright saying they would like to go back to that, and instead just hint that every modern problem seems to be that we just have too much money and time on our hands for our own goods.

Teddy Roosevelt, my favorite Republican President, used to actively break up large corporations to spur competition. Many large companies today he would have broken up long ago. Capitalism can only succeed with oversight, and Republicans seek to eliminate much of that.

There are some exceptions. The libertarian wing of the party is one that I until recently felt very aligned with, and every now and then a Republican comes along who is more "old school" than the preachers in suit and tie that we get typically from that party.

In a bizarre turn of events, conservatives today are more open with regards to ideas than their liberal counterparts. They may disagree with you, but rarely are conservatives actively trying to silence liberals for their views. (With the notable and large exception of the religious right - but that has been going on since the dawn of time.) For example, a conservative may not agree with Gay Marriage, but typically, they will not try to silence those who are for it.

Instead, conservatives choose to be closed with their own ideas rather than shutting out others. They look towards the institution to validate their own closed-mindedness, such as keeping gays from getting married, rather than silencing the opposition entirely. This is also something I can never profess to be a part of.

Any good that the conservative side used to have is being drowned out by bigotry. However, I can't wholly eliminate them from my roster because at the very least I can debate with them.

"They may disagree with what I say, but they will fight to the death for my right to say it." On the other end of the spectrum, they will fight to the death to shut me up. Which side would I rather be on? One who actively professes things I disagree with, but has no intention of shutting me up? Or one who actively professes what I tend to associate with, but goes against my views of open dialogue and allowing people to speak their minds?

HERE WE ARE, STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

The United States today is more polarized than any time before in its history save perhaps the civil war. The boundaries are not geographic, but instead intellectual and generational.

Yet this polarization alienates me and millions of others, regardless of age. We have no choice but to watch as each side reinforces itself and prepares for the next volley. Meanwhile, those of us who just want a government that works, keeps our families provided for and safe have no outlet. We have nobody to vote for.

Instead, we have to choose a demagogue, either right wing or left, and hope that this particular demagogue is at the opposite polarity from the rabid proto-fascist populace willing to use force to get their goals.

At the very least, at that point we will have some checks and balances as the two sides confront each other. At best, maybe we can get some dialogue. But I won't hold my breath.

Follow me on twitter @chris41336