I’ll be dusting off the old keyboard and going back to blogging. I want to go back to the root of the social media revolution. Blogs gave people the power to escape the industrial media complex, censors, thought police, and corporate do-gooders to avoid their narratives and explore new realities and ideas. Looking back, the era of blogs was the Wild West of the age of social media. What we have now is some dystopian version where we are not much more than metrics.

When freedom of expression is boiled down to predetermined selections offered to us by corporate special interests, politicians, and elitists it is no longer freedom nor expression. It is tyranny.

The current algorithm driven formats of social media are designed for commerce not freedom of speech or the discussion of self governance. In fact the platforms we became accustomed to utilizing for sharing our personal (and political) beliefs in Twitter and Facebook are in fact now designed to stifle speech, sow devision, and create chaos all the while enriching the CEOs who harvest our data along the way.

When political discourse devolves into likes, retweets, and ratio’ing our opponents we are failing at the great American Experiment. We are failing Democracy. We are failing our forefathers who gave us a Republic and a road map to Liberty.

 

More to come.

Yesterday was my last day working for the Republican Party of Minnesota. When the opportunity started before COVID it was only going to be a few hours a week. Just part time so I could tend to family and my new contracting business. When the COVID shutdowns hit I came on full time to help with the remote conventions. I was then offered the opportunity to stay on as Political Director but it was never a permanent commitment.

I did my best to help the candidates make it to the finish line and left it all on the field of battle. While statewide did not go as planned, the merits of the work we did at MNGOP are visible in the Congressional and Legislative victories across the state. We didn’t “go red” but unlike 2018, we celebrated on election night and some were big victories. DFL incumbents lost. Rising stars on our side were discovered. We have a lot to look forward to as a party.

But the last 8 months have been a grind mentally, physically, and taken on toll on me. It is time for me to take a much needed break and refocus on my family and my own health for the next few months. I could not continue to put my life on hold for the party now that the election was over.

I thank Chair Carnahan for the opportunity. I wish all of those that I met and worked with this year all the very best.

I’m not done done. I just need a break. One way or another, all of the knowledge and experience I gained this year will be put to use and not lost.