The Danger of the internet is something the political parties are not catching on to. They fail to understand the internet has created informed voters, more information to make a decision. More and more discussion is happening discussing a person’s behavior and morals and their choices in elected office, to determine if this is the candidate I want to be elected.
What political parties don’t understand is there are so many Facebook groups and pages discussing their every move and decision and being judged on it, that this has changed the power of a voter from a regular voter, to a super voter that can swing people and create pockets and groups to vote for a certain set of people.
This also amplifies further based on websites writing commentary where people discuss the commentary in the comments section and people find out more information from other people than from Candidates.
Now former classmates come forward to talk about how the candidate behaved in school, or if they got into a fight or was a bully. Or if they were a pretty academic through high school.
Facebook with almost 2 billion users, which counts in at one-quarter of the world’s population is on Facebook. The power to create a movement or swing the public’s opinion has never had such power.
Within that almost 2 billion users, there are factions and groups, but sometimes things cross all groups and make a wave.
Politics has not caught up, politicians post things to social media, but rarely do they ever interact with people. When they do it will be captured on video and you will get crucified.
With a cell phone, you become a reporter. You are able to capture that off the cuff moment where a politician talks out of turn and you can post it online to Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook and change the discussion about someone to positive or negative.
Politicians still seem to forget nowadays everything is recorded. Even from within your own group of people and staff. If you go off on someone for something, someone might record it and post it online.
Many Politicians have not been able to fully embrace the power of technology because they do not have control of it. Politicians want to control the narrative, and when they lose control and can not get it back, they lose elections.
In Alberta 2015 election the angst against the Federal Conservatives played out against the provincial Conservatives. Continuous self-serving policies were part of the issues, however, the double tap that happened to the Alberta Conservatives was the split of Conservatives running for the farther right Wild Rose Party. The Provincial Conservatives had been in power for over forty years and with migration patterns of people coming from all over Canada for oil jobs. This changed the underlying vote dynamic. Just months before the election the price of oil dropped by one-third of the price and that also played a factor in the Alberta election. Attitudes Changed towards the Conservatives, that people made a choice for change, and voted NDP.
Let’s look at the 2015 Canadian Election in brief. Stephen Harpers Conservatives entered into the longest election, figuring they could try a US style election with a massive war chest of over 30 Million Dollars. They looked at it as an issue of where the other parties did not have the war chest to fight it out for over a seventy-seven-day election, whereas the minimum required days is twenty-eight.
The fatal mistake that Stephen Harper made was when he went into the election he had already lost the narrative over twelve months ago.
Now here we are in the 2017 British Columbia Election where this plays out again where coming into the election the narrative has already been against Christie Clarke for over 12 months. Problems with Site C Dam, that it has been said we don’t need and is an environmental and financial disaster in the making. Children dying in foster care again and again. The HST was a big disaster that made it difficult for the BC Liberals to continue to do as they please. Time and again over the past several years the BC Liberals have been hit with scandals, illegalities, and criminal investigations. The BC Liberals are Set to lose the election. At the time of this writing, we are calculating they will be left with 30 seats.
The Power of the Internet to change the course of an election is absolute. Just look at the 2016 US Presidential Election. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, all played a powerful position in sculpting the outcome of that election.
Welcome to the revolution.
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