Will Oprah’s Social Media Be As Effective as Trumps in the 2020 Race ?
In today’s society, social media has given people the platforms they need to state their opinions: popular or unpopular. As the use of social media continues to increase so does the number of demagogues who use these platforms to state their opinions in a way that causes a massive, usually negative reaction. This reaction in my opinion is what demagogues live for. They could care less about what society thinks of their opinion, all they care about is the how big of a reaction people have, and how much attention negative or positive their actions will receive.
Some may say Donald Trump is a prime example of how social media enables demagogues and I agree. Social media has given Trump a platform to express his arrogance. His tweets, instagrams, and sometimes speeches are so outrageous you can’t help but give them an equally outrageous reaction. Living in the south specifically in an area where everyone is pretty far right, I got to see firsthand how his tweets made people practically eat out of his hands. He was saying everything your typical conservative wanted to hear. Due to this he was getting mass amounts of mass amounts of attention on several platforms and of course he loved every bit of it. Along with the positive reactions he was receiving he was also receiving negatives reactions. It is hard to say which reaction he enjoyed more. Personally, I think he enjoyed the negative reactions because it gave him more material to obnoxiously tweet or talk about. As his tweets and speeches began to go viral and get reactions from anybody and everybody, Trump began to filter less and less of what his was saying (not like he filtered very much to begin with). He was doing this knowing that the reactions he’ll receive will only continue to grow. This cycle social media has created for him will only continue to fuel his obnoxious and arrogant fire.
The sad thing about social media is that people who are trying to bring awareness to national and international issues won’t get half the attention of someone like Donald Trump who just talks out of his ass most of the time. I believe social media is 100x more effective in bringing awareness to issues when the user is not a politician. Donald Trump may believe his tweets are influencing public opinion but in reality, a lot of America is wondering when he’ll stop tweeting and playing golf and take the job seriously. I feel like the same will happen if Oprah were to use social media as a platform to run for president. As an African-American women society will automatically set higher expectation for her, and if she were to not exceed these expectations she would be dragged in the media for not taking the race seriously. Oprah’s social media influence would be better used as an aide to help campaign for a career politician rather then her own. As when it comes to running for political office a celebrity’s influence on a race would greater if they showed support and aide of of a career politician rather then themselves. There also is the fact that after this Trump vs. Hillary debacle America doesn’t need any more embarrassment of celebrities thinking they can run a country.
