Can Democrats Win Back the Internet in the Age of Trump?

As the curtain rises on the 2020 election, some Democrats worry their party is not doing enough to adapt their campaigns to modern habits, clinging instead to a naive hope that internet discourse will somehow fix itself, or that the tactics from the previous campaigns will somehow overcome the baser human instincts that gave rise to Donald Trump. A decade after Barack Obama’s campaign was heralded for its digital savvy around data and email marketing, Trump-era conservatives are now the ascendant political force of the networked internet. As progressives cling to the quaint idea that political fights can be won with facts and reason, or that regulators will find a way to take on the Big Tech platforms, right-wing voices have cracked open the emotional code of social media and hijacked it for political gain.