Logging Off Isn’t The Answer

2016 was a slap in the face to women, and 2024 was a knife in the throat to our gender

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By MONICA BIDDIX
For The Iowa Mercury

We’re almost a month removed from the 2024 Election, and in a way, it feels anticlimactic.

I certainly shed tears on Election Night and was numb most of the next day. I texted some female friends that 2016 was a slap in the face to women, and 2024 was a knife in the throat to our gender.

It felt different from 2016 because this time, I saw it coming. I tried to sound the alarm, waved the red flags in September, and relayed what I saw in my visits to Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina in the weeks leading up to the Election. One of the reasons I saw it coming was what I witnessed on social media, primarily Twitter.

I first joined Twitter in 2011 as a sports enthusiast. During one of the many periods of unemployment that all political operatives endure, I was living with my parents and watching college basketball almost every night with my dad.

I would watch the games while simultaneously following my Twitter feed. Often, I would learn why a coach was ejected, which player was hurt and where, or why the game was being delayed on Twitter before the broadcasters announced it on television. I quickly became a part of “Tar Heel Twitter” and joined like-minded college basketball fans who loved to tweet out the website www.diddukewin.com the minute the Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball suffered a defeat.

As my political career progressed, Twitter became more integral to my job and evolved into my favorite news source. In 2016, when I was Communications Director for the Iowa Democratic Party, one of my primary jobs was rapid response, which entails drafting statements and press releases as soon as possible in response to breaking news. During the 2016 election, I worked primarily from my laptop, but I also kept a separate monitor on my desk with a Tweetdeck that displayed four columns of my Twitter feed where a river of news and opinions flowed.

The first column was my personal account, and the next column followed Iowa politics in general. Then came a column for the Iowa Press and, finally, a column for the National Press. One might say 2016 was Twitter's breakout year in politics.

Almost a decade later, in 2024, my Twitter feed had grown to six columns, including feeds dedicated to Baltimore politics and the Baltimore Press. However, earlier this year, when Elon Musk started charging money for Tweetdeck, I chose not to give the wealthiest man in the world any more money. And if Musk starts charging money to merely have an account, I will leave. I am not giving that man any of my money.

Over the past week or so, many of my political friends have abandoned Twitter’s platform and joined “Bluesky,” for which I admit I have not created an account. I thought “Threads” was supposed to be the alternative to Twitter. Anyway, I need another social media account like a hole in the head.

I get it. I get it. In recent months, Twitter, which was once a cool source of breaking news and a place to follow your favorite sports stars and humorous parody accounts, has become a cesspool of doom and darkness fueled by conservative extremism.

Anyone on Musk’s platform has noticed a marked shift over the past few months as he buddied up to Donald Trump. I started seeing tweets from extremist Charlie Kirk on my feed even though I do not follow Kirk’s account. I previously shared how frightening it was in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene as I watched conspiracy theories literally take over the platform in one of the most choreographed misinformation campaigns I have ever seen.

You know it is terrible when a REPUBLICAN Congressman from western North Carolina has to issue a lengthy newsletter to his constituents debunking false conspiracy theories. However, to be clear, the same Congressman stood next to Trump in support when he visited the area the following week. No matter how nasty and full of lies it can get, logging off the platform is not the answer. It is precisely what the dark side wants you to do.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the past few months leading up to the 2024 Election and the weeks after is that most people don’t want to believe things they don’t want to hear. When I was telling friends that Democrats were in trouble, they told me I was being pessimistic and assured me that women were going to save us.

I saw the huge crowds supporting Harris and people supposedly leaving Trump’s rallies. That was encouraging to Democrats, even though I maintained that the people who were going to determine the election were not politically active, let alone rally attendees.

Time after time, I have cautioned die-hard Democrats about living in silos. And some of them get angry and claim they do not live in a bubble. The truth is if you only engage with other people who have the same politics as you do and choose only to take in information that makes you feel good, then I am sorry, you do live in a bubble. And living in silos is what got us here in the first place.

When it comes to politics, I am an outlier in the industry. Many of my colleagues, especially in Iowa, grew up in a culture dominated by politics and have attended rallies and meetings since they were knee-high like the corn in July. I grew up in the conservative South, got an education, and ultimately ended up living in Baltimore, one of the most progressive cities in the country.

I’ve lived in staunchly different regions of the country and fully recognize how divided we are as a nation. And I shouldn’t single out Democrats. Republicans can undoubtedly live in a bubble as well if all they do is engage with people who think the same way as they do.

And I know it is hard. I sometimes have to control my anger when I scroll through Twitter, but it is essential to stay alert and vigilant. When the Washington Post failed to endorse in the Presidential election, many Democrats canceled their subscriptions. Ironically, the Post’s motto is “Democracy dies in darkness.”

If you want to keep losing elections, keep tuning out the things you do not want to hear. I am not engaging in the blame game, but it is clear that the Democratic Party is out of touch with much of the American populace. And no, I am not saying you should buddy up to your neighbor who flies a Confederate flag. And yes, sexism, racism, and homophobia played a HUGE part in the Election.

And I am not faulting Democrats but more so our country’s desire to devalue intelligence and limit critical thinking. The country has been dumbing down since the advent of television, specifically cable news networks. Thirty years ago, the January 6th committee reports would have been broadcasted on all three major news networks and would have interrupted your grandmother’s “stories” because it was news that every American needed to hear.

That’s not the world we live in anymore.

I was in the Nashville, Tennessee airport during one of the afternoons that the January 6th committee’s findings were airing. The bartender grabbed the remote and asked, “Why is the news on?” and promptly changed the channel. That’s where we are as a country right now.

I will end with another fact that some people might not want to hear: Trump’s campaign tailored its messaging and strategy to people who watch WWE wrestling, while the Harris campaign catered to Ivy League graduates.

Guess who won?

And with Linda McMahon heading up the Department of Education, which Trump has promised to dismantle, it’s only going to get worse—much, much worse. And keeping your head in the sand as to what is happening around you, no matter how horrible it may be, is not the answer.

“Know thine enemy, don’t ignore them.”

Monica Biddix

(ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Monica Biddix is the founding principal of Workhorse Strategies, a boutique political consulting firm with wins across the country. She spent almost a decade traversing the state of Iowa, living and working in Cresco, Riceville, Cedar Rapids, and Des Moines while managing campaigns at every level, from state legislative to presidential campaigns.

Monica first moved to Iowa in 2012, where she spearheaded incumbent State Senator Mary Jo Wilhelm’s re-election campaign - a 126-vote-win margin that secured the Democratic majority in the Iowa State Senate.

As Communications Director for the Iowa Democratic Party in 2016, Monica fielded state and national press inquiries as the primary on-the-record spokesperson. She served as a communications consultant for Admiral Mike Franken’s campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2022.

In 2019, she was featured in the Des Moines Register as one of the unprecedented number of female state directors leading presidential campaigns.)

(Douglas Burns, founder of The Iowa Mercury and a fourth-generation Iowa journalist from Carroll, is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Read dozens of the most talented writers in Iowa in just one place. The Iowa Writers' Collaborative spans the full state. It’s one of the biggest things going in Iowa journalism and writing now — and you don’t want to miss. This collaborative is — as the outstanding Quad Cities journalist Ed Tibbetts says — YOUR SUNDAY IOWA newspaper. )