Facebook and politics

In Tennessee we have seen a rash of backwards, bigoted legislation proposed that has been moving through the state House and Senate at a fairly rapid pace. Now Tennessee is a pretty darn red state, but there are still large numbers of democrats and liberals here. There have been a few protests and marches staged against this legislation, but sadly the turn out for these events hasn't been very impressive. This is sad because the local media loves to cover events of this sort and when they show up and broadcast images of 20 or 30 people standing in front of the state capital it doesn't make it seem like there is a huge amount of opposition to these bills.

Now take a look back at 2009. In many parts of the country, including Tennessee, there were huge rallies in support of the tea party. We have all seen the polls and it is obvious that only a small percentage of the people in our country support the tea party, but images of hundreds or thousands of angry conservatives standing around, screaming, with signs raised, gave the movement more momentum than it would have had without such images.

Now go even further back to the 1960's and 70's. All over the country people took to the streets to show support for civil rights and to show opposition to the Vietnam War. Women were calling out for equal rights while burning their bras as men a block away were burning their draft cards.

Obviously the conservatives took a page from the liberal play book while it seems liberals have thrown that same book in the trash. So why do conservatives at least look so much more involved and energized than liberals? I blame Facebook.

Take a look at this map. When I first saw it I noticed something interesting. It doesn't match up perfectly, but if you overlaid a map showing political affiliations on top of this map there is a correlation between the two. The more conservative states tend to have lower levels of Facebook usage while the more liberal states tend to have higher levels. There are many reasons why this could be happening, but I'm not interested in the reasons behind it. I am interested in the possible results this variance might have.

It seems like everyday I am confronted with links to online petitions when I open up my Facebook page. Being the good liberal that I am I go to the petitions, and if I agree with them I electronically sign them before patting myself on the back for taking action to support the things I believe in. Yes, I, and a lot of other people, are very lazy. Instead of taking three hours to participate in a protest or weeks to organize one I fill in a few lines of text and hit send. Call me an armchair activist I guess.

But what if I, and you, didn't have access to Facebook or the internet? What if we simply chose not to use them even if we had the access? Would we be more inclined to leave our homes and make our voices heard in person at the centers of power? Without Facebook and the internet would we see any other way of voicing our grievances? Yes, Facebook and Twitter have been used to aid the organization of many political actions and movements, but is the effect always positive? I think these movements would be larger, in a visible sense, if people couldn't find ways to participate in them from the comfort of their own homes. I have seen with my own eyes how many people watched the streaming video of Occupy Nashville protesters getting arrested a few months ago, but it seemed very few of those people watching were interested in being where the action was. They made a choice between activist entertainment and activism, the entertainment won out.

So next time an online petition shows up in your news feed do more than just sign it. Check into the issue and find time to go support it in a physical way if it is something you believe in. If all of us really did something to change the course of our state instead of just virtually doing something I think Tennessee, and the rest of America, would be a much better place.