The Canary in Your Campaign's Coalmine

The internet has lost its shine for a large percentage of Americans, but politics hasn't quite figured that out yet.

For several years now, I've been trying to plug into either a political campaign or a nonprofit. I've applied to various organizations, such as the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, the Idaho Second Amendment Alliance, the Idaho Republican Party, and the latest, Team Vivek. My experience is always the same: I read through a lot of background information on the group, fill out a web form, spend my valuable time contemplating a meaningful response to their call to action, submit my request for further information, and never hear from anyone ever again.

I have yet to receive anything back from the web form requests I sent through your campaign website as well. The only reason I was able to get this far, past webmasters and other various gatekeepers, was because I messaged Vivek directly on Twitter, and luckily, he replied with a link to Slack after a few attempts.

I've gone through these processes about fifteen times over the past couple of years, so I know this is a symptom of a far larger problem and not just an issue with Team Vivek. However, this is a much more dire problem for Republicans than it is for Democrats.

You've got a talent pool of over 600 people in Slack. Many, like me, have been trying to plug into something, somewhere, for a long time. Many are seeing our country being flushed down the toilet; seeing our feckless and corrupt leaders trying to goad rising powers into war.

The Republicans and Democrats, both with few exceptions, are braindead. They lack ideas to reignite the American spirit, they foam at the mouth and flail our military might around like oppressive tentacles waiting to hit some minor resistance.

When we do hit something, we blame it on the other guys. We ransack and destabilize their region, then take our toys and start looking for the next minor power to terrorize. It's like a maladjusted toddler with soiled shorts and diaper rash that steps on other children's sandcastles because they're doing better without us, and we can’t stand it.

This is what our nation has become: a failed state and the globe’s foremost terrorist. These “leaders” do nothing but look for other enemies to blame; passing the blame is the one thing where they have a lot of practice and are damn good at it.

Most of these individuals are absolute morons, and many of them are criminals. However, what they have against us is the captured institutions and well-established networks of operation. What the Democrats have, in particular, is an established grassroots thanks to trade unions and collegiate activism.

You’re doing yourselves an incredible disservice not making more and better use of the individuals on Slack who are sitting there just waiting to be activated. The most successful campaigns travel through word of mouth, and you need dedicated individuals at the grassroots to make that happen.

I can understand not making many paid hires right now, but not making effective use of volunteers is unbelievably stupid. You’ll end up burning out many of the individuals who are trying to help and sending in their information when all the focus for the campaign is in other places.

Don’t have time to dedicate to the Slack group or time to answer information requests from the web form? Get some help! There’s absolutely no excuse not to be reaching out to people who want to get activated! Campaigns are so laser-focused on campaign contributions when they could be leveraging tenfold more value in volunteer efforts.

Here are some additional no-brainer ideas that I’ll send your way for free before I take my leave. First, get Vivek on Slack himself once or twice a week to rally the troops. Second, have Vivek invite other public figures, such as Jordan Peterson, to join Slack and contribute as well. Third, create incentives necessary to keep people on high alert and highly motivated, including my idea of gamifying the Slack channel and having contests for merch designs, etc.

There are many things that can be done at no or very little cost to create extremely valuable incentives for your network to remain engaged and hungry for the next bit of their time investment. Instead of investing their time and feeling it was a wasted effort, as I have concluded.

I hope the loss of my interest in this group will be a warning to put more time and attention into building your network and spending time activating these already willing participants. They're here to help you make a difference, so put them on assignment! Sharing posts on social media isn't sufficient. The political influence of social media is dying, and you need grassroots, individual, and community efforts.

The internet has lost its shine for a large percentage of Americans, but politics hasn't quite figured that out yet. Still, you're wasting most of your time on online campaigning. Where online used to be the new in-person, in-person is now in fashion again. Get on our level, and get your heads out of "the cloud" and out of your collective asses.

With the sincerest hope for our country and appreciation for Mr. Ramaswamy's message, I thank you.

Mann Wynn Shramana