Bernie Sanders Supporters: Stop Spending your Time Following Bernie Sanders

Quick disclaimer: all advice I am giving in this piece apply to me, and I am guilty of all everything I criticize others for. I write this piece in the hope that crystallizing my views will force my discipline to be subject to my desire to avoid hypocrisy.

Next introductory element: I strongly, strongly, recommend reading this blog post from Aaron Schwartz either before or after reading this post.

If you already support Bernie Sanders and are very unlikely to change your mind, there is no point in following any poll, watching any of the debates, watching any speeches or media appearances Bernie does or has done, or keeping up to date with any of the news gossip that unfolds.

If you believe in your own power and necessity (which you should), the success of the campaign and movement relies on our actions, not our passive existence and vote. Given that our time is limited and we can’t do two things at the same time, success of the movement will require conscious evaluation of our activities to maximize the effectiveness of the single most valuable resource: our own labor.

Now, let’s turn to some activities that I think are a total waste of time.

Don’t Follow the Current State of the Race

Most media coverage of the campaign is devoted to speculative assessments of how Bernie’s chances have changed in the past day or two. Most of this coverage is not only teaches you very little about the current state of the race, but also gives you knowledge that is guaranteed to be obsolete in the next two days.

It is anxiety-inducing and self-reinforcing – reading one article that makes you pessimistic about the state of the race causes you to seek out another article that disagrees with the article you just read. It’s an addictive reward pattern that involves little educational value, and does not in any way increase your effectiveness as an activist. Furthermore, Facebook, Twitter, or Google will quickly realize what makes you click on things and structure you <blank> feed to force you to spend more time on their platform, feeding your bad habits.

Break the cycle. If the information you are receiving does not in some way change what activities you would carry out on behalf of the campaign, it is by definition irrelevant. Ignore it, it doesn’t help.

It’s also actively harmful, given that the media generally operate under an epistemological view of the election that is inaccurate and different from the view most Bernie supports have. Their view of what wins elections is generally focused around scandals, polling results, Hillary Clinton’s weaknesses, and a false empiricism that the same principles at work in the 2008 primary must be at play in this one.

For example, Nate Silver (of 538), Nate Cohn, Slate, The Week magazine, and others all ran articles that said that a tie is not good enough in Iowa — Bernie needed to win. This is totally ridiculous. The difference in delegates is minuscule, the impact on momentum impossible to determine, and the common argument for it — needing to win in the first two states, because he’ll likely lose in South Carolina, doesn’t make much sense since none of these states matter delegate wise.

Using the alternate, movement-oriented, long-term epistemology, we come to a totally different conclusion. What matters is fundraising, ground-game, and volunteer support. Bernie has already raised enough money and organized enough volunteers to have strong ground operations well-beyond Super Tuesday, and raised 3 million immediately after Iowa. In one week, no one will ever say “If only he won Iowa”. That’s stupid. Keep your head up, stay focused. They declared the death of Bernie after the Benghazi hearing and first debate. It doesn’t matter, this will be a long race.

Instead, check r/SandersForPresident or a Bernie volunteer Slack you’re on every couple of days and see what people thing is the most effective use of your time at this moment in the race.

Don’t Watch Bernie

He says the same thing over and over again, complete with identical hand motions and intonation. After the first time you see it, you’ve heard it. After the fifth time, it’s certainly in your long-term memory. What’s the point in seeing it 30 more times?

Don’t watch him give the same stump speech over and over again across the country and don’t watch his media appearances, where he repeats sections of his stump speech punctuated by talk show host jokes. Instead, do whatever activity you can do that you think is most valuable. For me, it’s programming, organizing around my school, and sometimes making calls. For you it may be directly communicating with Hillary supporters online or building local progressive community, but anyone can make calls.

Specific occasions like Bernie’s address on Wall Street or his speech on Democratic Socialism are exceptions. If new policy is being introduced, watch it if you want to.

For the most part, Bernie is not an educator or academic, he is a politician. One who has watched every single Bernie speech is less well prepared to argue for Bernie’s candidacy than one who has read a single book on the history of the financial system and a single paper on political corruption.

Don’t Watch the Debates

For the most part, I have felt a strong increase in the production value of all debates since 2008/2012 and a huge increase in the influence of corporate technology (Google, Twitter, Facebook) that has not at all translated into educational value. Instead of telling you that wages have stagnated for the past 35 years, they show you an infographic from Google that people often search about the economy. Instead of giving you those nice NowThis, AJ+ style videos explaining something like the Universal Banking Model and the history of Wall Street deregulation, they tell you Goldman Sachs is trending. This is not valuable information. This is advertising. Do you best to maintain a mental distinction between the two.

The one exception to this is if you are interested in keeping a section of your brain in-tune with the way the Democratic propaganda system operates. If you think you are sufficiently skilled to decipher it, find its gaps, and exploit them — all while maintaining a strict separation between advertisement and reality — go ahead and watch. Otherwise, do your homework and make some calls tomorrow with all the time you saved.

Withdrawal from All Non-Strategic, Non-Social Use of Social Media

Social media is a battleground like any other where ideas are contested and compared, driven by algorithms whose operating principles we only have general guesses at. As a result, strategic engagement on social media is an absolute necessity, and part of the reason the campaign has done well so far.

But imagine how long it would take you if you set aside some time at night to share and participate in relevant social media campaigns as well as get in a few Facebook comment wars. Now compare that to the amount of time you spend on social media, as well as the increase in time it takes you to do all of your daily work because you check it.

The strategic necessity of social media does not change the fact that it is the next development in consumerist over-stimulation placing you in a constant state of algorithmic manipulation, with likely negative affects on your attention and brain functioning and overall emotional health. It’s probably fine to talk to your friends on Facebook chat. I try to use messenger.com to avoid distractions.

Conclusion

This movement deserves and requires our best. Corporate news and social media are a battleground, where we fight for influence and they fight for control of our thought, brains, bodies, and time. I’ll be dammed if we lose this election because we couldn’t unplug our eye sockets and develop a long-term focus on what actually matters.

Now to actually do this myself…

If you’re a programmer or tech savvy, the development of a tool that would allow people to collaboratively draft a previous day in review meant to replace active news reading would be of massive help.