Donald Trump: The *real* first Internet candidate.
Sure, I know the internet has been around for decades. I know that it's been a major part of public life since the mid 1990s, and much has been made about it, how it has transformed global society and connected the world at our finger tips.
And yes, political candidates have flocked to the internet as a campaigning tool. From campaign websites to social media to Youtube videos, it's hard to imagine a political campaign that hasn't been heavily centered around the internet.
But there's the internet. And then there's the Internet.
There's the internet in what we, in our most optimistic and idealized state of mind, conceptualize it to be: the free and open exchange of ideas across the globe, a marketplace of speech, where we can engage one another in stimulating thought and conversation from miles apart. It's a great "Buy the World a Coke" type of attitude that would make anyone want to stand up and cheer.
But then there's the Internet, the Internet that it far too often actually is: an anarchic, chaotic Wild Wild West of a place, full of liars, scammers, predators, bigots and bullies. Full of ugliness and people emboldened by anonymity to be the very worst human beings that they can possibly be.
And that--the latter Internet--is what embodies this entire Donald Trump phenomenon as a whole. The Internet plays towards con artists and uninhibited human nastiness at the very lowest level, and that is everything that Donald Trump is.
Donald Trump is the clickbait links that seek only page views under the guise of vague, sensationalist headlines.
Donald Trump is the pseudo-scientific woo talking about fake natural cures to serious ailments or encouraging bad health advice, such as skipping vaccinations.
Donald Trump is the multi-level-marketing (MLM) scams that seize the minds of well-intentioned but gullible folks to sell useless products that would fail on the shelves of your neighborhood retailer.
Donald Trump is the "like-farming" on your Facebook feed, promising to enter you in a contest for a free vacation worth thousands of dollars to a place they have no authority or affiliation with, if only you "like and share" their phony page.
Donald Trump is the Alt-Right--angry, hateful, racist and misogynistic cretins found in places like 4Chan and Reddit, the people behind Gamergate, who have an odd unending obsession over "cucks" and "SJWs" and posting "dank memes". (These people really are attributing to much of Trump's online support--read any live feed to a Trump speech and it's teeming with them. It's scary.).
Donald Trump is the fake news stories from fake news sources passed off as truth--not satirically, as The Onion and The Borowitz Report do so,so well--but in a genuine attempt to confuse and mislead people, even though a simple internet search of minutes or a checking of Snopes or Politifact would reveal it all to be lies.
Donald Trump is the pop-up ad that you try to click away, only to inadvertently infect your computer with a nasty virus.
Donald Trump is Infowars and World Net Daily and the peddlers of insane, impossible conspiracy theories that people nonetheless buy into as the gospel truth.
Donald Trump is your spam email account, full of Nigerian lottery scams, ads for porn sites and fake prescription drug offers.
Donald Trump is Stormfront and other online hate groups that do nothing but to divide and incite the most ugly, hateful, bigoted reactions against any possible group imaginable.
Donald Trump is all those things of the Internet. He is the green, oozy, sickly, foul fecal-smelling slime that coats and suffocates the high-minded foundations of the internet like an invasive algae bloom.
He is the first true Candidate of the Internet.
= new reply since forum marked as read
"The Internet plays towards con artists and uninhibited human nastiness at the very lowest level, and that is everything that Donald Trump is." Or at least is playing to. I have no idea what this highly manipulative narcissist actually believes, except in his own greatness and everyone else's great inferiority.
