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Twitter’s death will shape the 2024 US presidential election [1]

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Date: 2023-10

I’ll start this week’s column with the good news. I believe the Democrats’ chances in the 2024 US presidential election are decent, given both that abortion is likely to be front and center and that last week radical Republicans once again tried to shut down the federal government because they could not get their culture-warring priorities – specifically anti-trans attacks in this case – into a budget bill that could pass the Democratic-controlled Senate.

While a shutdown was ultimately averted, these petulant political fits don’t tend to work out well for Republicans – though it seems they just can’t quit them. As one frustrated Republican member of the House said last week: “We always get the blame.” Well, yes. That’s because literally every federal government shutdown in recent memory has been the GOP’s fault, as has all the resulting economic pain inflicted on federal employees and other workers who depend on federal funding.

In this case, such economic pain is still looming; the stopgap bill agreed by Republican Kevin McCarthy only kicks the can down the road for 45 days, after which the more extreme members of his already extreme party may eventually manage to force a shutdown anyway. In the meantime, McCarthy’s deal with the Democrats who helped him pass his budget bill has cost him his speakership, becoming the first person in history to be removed from the role.

As for the other big topic in the presidential race, Republicans are obviously to blame for the end of a nationwide right to abortion in the United States. Thanks to the Christian Right’s power, the party gave us the president who appointed the Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe v. Wade.

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But while both factors are likely to help Democrats in November 2024, there is bad news as well, particularly around social media disinformation and manipulation, which played a powerful role in the 2016 election. Now, after a brief period in which activists and politicians forced Facebook and Twitter to take some steps to limit political disinformation, mitigating the harm that it causes, things have taken a rapid turn for the worse.

Remember when Western pundits were optimistic about the democratic potential of social media? While the significance of such platforms to the 2010-2011 revolutionary actions collectively dubbed the Arab Spring may have been exaggerated, there is no doubt that at the time, and for several years after, Twitter, in particular, was incredibly useful for social justice advocates, protesters, antifascists, activists, and those seeking to provide and receive news in real-time.

Cops with tear gas breaking up a protest? Twitter could help you navigate your way out of the situation. Active shooter event in progress? Twitter would likely have had information from firsthand observers before it showed up anywhere in the formal media. Want to know what’s happening at that neo-Nazi demonstration? Counter-protesters are uploading pictures and videos as things unfold.

Social media also provided ways for activists to organize to get out the vote, although as we now know, Facebook in particular was notoriously harvesting big data that would be weaponized to manipulate elections in favor of right-wingers.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/twitter-death-shape-us-election-republicans-post-truth-donald-trump-joe-biden-elon-musk-x/

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