CREATING PURPOSE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS CULTURE WARS

A fiery online discourse is happening regarding key statewide races in North Carolina. Can our involvment in it move individuals into action? 

I spent the two weeks before election day 2024 in the middle of comment threads, subbreddits, and direct messages – building relationships with other North Carolina parents who are in the middle of a escalating fight for the future of our public schools. 

I wrote scripts unique to TikTok, Reddit, X, and direct messages to recruit people to organizing and Get Out The Vote opportunities. There were lots of ups and downs, some drama, some wins, an account suspension, but overall a lot of learning. I didn’t hit the recruitment numbers I set out for, but the journey was compelling none-the-less. 

• Background

My assessment of the 2024 election as it pertains to NC is below. Written several weeks before election day 2024. 

The 2024 general election is underway. North Carolina is positioned once again as a swing state with high potential to vote Democrat across the board in statewide races, given the excitement about the Harris / Walz ticket. However there are many more dynamics at play in the election in NC worth noting.

• Click here for deeper NC Election analysis

  1. The state is effectively gerrymandered in favor of Republican legislative districts. It will be next to impossible to break the Republican supermajority in the state legislature until there is a progressive majority in the State Supreme Court that can check lawmakers and require district maps to be redrawn. 

  2. The governor's race is between a white nationalist who is Black (!) and a Jewish liberal. Mark Robinson (Lt. Gov.), a self-proclaimed “Black Nazi,” is running against Josh Stein (Atty. Gen.), a middle-of-the-road Democrat. Republican power in the state does not hinge on Robinson’s victory. Given the likelihood of a Republican supermajority in the General Assembly that could overturn any veto power held by a sitting governor, many are anticipating an easy Stein victory. 

  3. Republicans are desperate to keep a right-wing majority in the state Supreme Court. Allison Riggs, an incumbent judge with a progressive history, is trying to keep her seat on the NC Supreme Court and not get ousted by Republican Jefferson Griffin, a lifelong conservative who attacks justices who support reproductive rights as “activist judges … who legislate from the bench.”

  4. The race for State Superintendent is a direct manifestation of the anti-CRT, transphobic culture warsthat the Right is waging on youth. Michelle Morrow, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and Jan 6th rioter, is the Republican nominee for State Superintendent, a role that has significant influence over the public education curriculum and funding. Morrow shocked political leaders in the state when she defeated Republican incumbent Catherine Truitt in the primary. Her opponent, Mo Greene, is a decades-long advocate for public education who previously was the superintendent of one of NC’s largest and most diverse school districts. 

  5. (Some) statewide elections are the principal pathway to winning back political power for multiracial working-class people in NC. Gerrymandering has made legislative pathways to power in NC essentially useless. Statewide elections for judges and justices at every level as well as key power-broker positions like Superintendent of Public Education are essential stepping stones to break the Republican stranglehold on democracy at the State House and Senate. 

  6. Republican lawmakers forced a anti-immigrant constitutional amendment onto the ballot. HB 1074 seeks to sow distrust in elections by suggesting that non-citizens are casting votes at-scale. The truth is that non-citizens can’t vote, NC elections are secure, and immigrants are not dangerous. The lie is that this amendment is needed. Right-wing lawmakers pushed this ballot measure forward specifically to sow distrust if election results do not go the way they would like. 

Here’s the internet of it all: dangerous disinformation, heated discourse, shocking headlines, and raucous commenting is a central feature of this election in NC. The inflammatory remarks of Mark Robinson as well as Michelle Morrow’s slow drip of conspiracy-related content has lit social media platforms ablaze with content and engagement. 

Both Morrow and Robinson have incited violence before and during their campaigns. However, Morrow’s demeanor has leaned more respectable since she won her primary. Her campaign has tried to paint her as a level-headed, concerned parent. Her opponents, however, are investing increasing energy into comparing Morrow’s extreme positions to those of Mark Robinson, whose poll numbers have plummeted drastically since his controversial online presence on porn websites was made public. 

The online component of this election is undeniably going to sway this election—and I'm not talking about paid campaign advertising on every platform. The engagement of individual users and revelatory discussions and content creation will shape the outcome of this election. User power here cannot be ignored. 

• ASSUMPTION

Individual online users will and are playing a key role in determining the outcome of the gubernatorial and state Superintendent of Public Education elections in NC. These online users are drama-seekers, trolls from all aisles, progressive influencers on TikTok, concerned redditors, conservative parents, and home-school families.

There are ways to join the online discourse on public schools as a NC voter and parent and move concerned voters and individuals into taking actions to support candidates who have plans to better NC. 

• Hypotheses 

I believe that commenting, engaging, agitating, cross-platform posting, and direct messaging calls to action can effectively be used to acquire vote pledges and to deep canvass online users in NC.

I believe that in 35 total digital canvassing hours, we will be able to collect 70 positive candidate IDs OR digital pledge cards and 10 RSVPS to either phone bank or attend a Public School Strong training. 

• RESULTS 

• Click here to view our data

  • TikTok: 10 hours

  • X: 2 hours

  • Reddit: 30 hours

  • Direct Messages: 127

  • Conversations: 20 (15.74% of DMs sent)

  • Views: 121,500

  • Comments received: 397

  • Comments made: 65

  • Posts made: 6

  • Pledges acquired: 5/70

  • Candidate IDs acquired: 48/70

  • Phonebank RSVP acquired: 6/10

  • Meeting RSVP acquired: 5/10

• Conclusion 

In looking at my data and results, my hypotheses have been rejected. But what I learned may be even more valuable than hitting my numbers and being right. 

I set out to collect 70 positive candidate IDs OR digital pledge cards and 10 event RSVPs within a total of 35 canvassing hours. 

Despite the tremendous engagement I was able to cultivate on Reddit, as well as the amount of juicy content related to this election on TikTok and X, I hit major hurdles on nearly every platform that made the transactional quality of this GOTV / mobilizing experiment very challenging in the 35-hour time frame. 

I’ll summarize the major hurdles before I get into the analysis and new assumptions. 

• Hurdle number one: TikTok, X, and Reddit are very different platforms.

  Learning the ropes while testing my assumptions ate up all my time. 

  Once I learned that Reddit was the best platform to test my hypotheses due to the engagement on NC-related subreddits, I had already lost 12 hours to TikTok and X. I sent 56 DMs on TikTok that never reached the users and got reminded of the toxic broadcast culture on X before I pivoted to Reddit. 

  The lesson: Know yourself on social media, what you are good at, what you enjoy, and what you don’t, as well as the tactical opportunities of the platform you will use before you start organizing! 

• Hurdle number two: Mobilizing on Reddit and TikTok gets read as spamming.

  You can’t post links in comments, and direct messaging with cold-contacts is discouraged. 

  Comment threads are contained spaces. It was next to impossible to get my script and ask to a TikTok user who described herself as a NC public school supporter. Reddit was a little easier, but both platforms privilege DMs with users who follow one another and have default settings that automatically opt-out users from receiving cold DMs. On TikTok, every conversation I had was with creators who had manually adjusted their settings to receive DMs, likely because they were small to mid-size creators who used the platform to network. 

  Though Reddit’s guardrails around DMs were far more lax than TikTok, I did receive a 3-day temporary suspension on Reddit for sending my stock DM script repeatedly. I got reported by one angry user and then the platform took notice. 

  The lesson: Relationships get the good conversations. For example, on Reddit, a unique DM and an existing rapport from within subreddits or threads led to all my successful RSVPs and conversations.  here

• Hurdle number three: This is not a doorknock; this is deep organizing and it takes time.

  If you want transactionality, run ads. 

  If you are a content creator, get on X or TikTok and build over time with other creators, engage with current events, and get involved in a particular issue or media ecosystem.

  If you have something to say to a specific group of people, get on Reddit to organize. The social design of Reddit that merges anonymity with resonance (upvoting and karma) creates a lot of interesting possibilities as a deep-organizing tool. 

  The lesson: I should have started this effort after the NC primary in March of 2023! With more time it would have been highly feasible to build relationships, recruit members and leaders, and run distributed organizing efforts online in a way I hadn’t previously imagined. goes here

• Analysis 

I stated it in my assumption and I’ll say it again: Individual online users played a key role in determining the outcomes of the gubernatorial and state Superintendent of Public Education elections in NC. 

Though my time-constrained setup and unpreparedness led to my hypothesis ultimately failing, I feel confident in saying that choosing to organize deeply in online channels during this election was the absolute right move and Reddit was ultimately the place to be. 

Here’s a little data snapshot that supports my assessment that user-focused online channels were essential in these elections. 

I spent time with two separate social listening tools (MeltWater, Rival IQ) to track mentions of “Mark Robinson” and “Michelle Morrow.” I wanted to compare earned media mentions and sentiment to social media mentions and sentiment. Then I wanted to see how the disparities between the two candidates in user-controlled arenas and traditional press stacked up against their losses.

Here’s the summary: Morrow lost her race by ~2 percentage points, Robinson lost his by a whopping ~15 percentage points. Traditional press mentioned “Morrow” and “Robinson” neutrally, despite negative-leaning sentiment, and had fewer overall posts. Social media had overwhelmingly negative things to say about each candidate and had posts in the hundreds of thousands with billions of views / engagement (and that isn’t even counting the majority of social platforms or even what was happening in the comments).

Here is a side-by-side of how Morrow and Robinson were portrayed in the traditional press and on social media. 

In addition to sentiment — between the March primary of 2023 and election day, Mark Robinson was mentioned 43% more times on social media daily than in press publications and Michelle Morrow was mentioned 8% more times daily on social media than in press publications.

• There are three simple yet deep takeaways here that I want to drive home to my audience of organizing practitioners:

  1. Digital spaces are inextricably part of the terrain that helps us win and lose elections. I’d argue that they are a bigger part of our win margins and numbers than we may like to admit after we’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on canvassing programs and phone banks. I’m in no position to conclude just how much the digital discourse impacts our win or loss margins, but what is clear is that if we can blend member recruitment, GOTV, and community formation in digital spaces (which we can), we have to start doing it now. 

  2. Controversy and scandals (just maybe) are HUGE digital organizing opportunities in elections. We especially can’t ignore digital spaces in races where culture wars are being waged. Yes, I know the internet is a horrible simulation that brings out the worst of us, that is just part of the ecosystem of these spaces. If we have an established genuine presence and voice in digital spaces as controversy strikes, we can make a big impact, recruit new people, and run efforts that get us closer to our goals. 

  3. It’s sooooo easy, effective, and at times even fun to be a genuine part of digital communities. Let’s look at Reddit for a second. First, you don’t have to be a professional content creator, artist, or captivating speaker to make an impact; you just need to know how to use relatively good judgment on a listserv. Second, landing a good post on Reddit might be the most effective in-house (without the use of ads, press, or influencers) way to build organic growth around your issues and ideas. Check out this short thread from Abortion Squad for more. 

• New Assumption

Through the deep dive into North Carolina subreddits and conversations on public schools, PitaBreadFace has become a regular with some name recognition in the right spaces. If I had started this effort after the primary in March 2023, I believe I would have created something truly formidable in Reddit by the time this election came to a close. 

After some time, I was able to understand Reddit’s game of being resonant and influential in the right spaces. I also have a stronger sense of how organizing outside the choir would be possible on Reddit, by making strategic choices about posting or commenting in potentially antagonistic subreddits. 

Every instance where a cold(ish) direct message didn't work in my organizing on Reddit, relationality thrived. I still have ongoing conversations with NC Redditors. Other NC Redditors and I actively engage and thank each other for our content and comments. I look forward to maintaining those relationships. It’s a place that feels fun, meaningful, and ripe for deeper organizing. 

My new assumption is this: If I continue to invest energy into relationships in the right NC-related subreddits, I would be able to create a thriving r/NCPublicSchools subreddit, a place where supporters of public schools and alum of NC public schools convene to have fun nostalgic exchanges, share experiences as parents and students, and agitate each other into shared purpose. It can’t be only organizing asks though: that, I firmly believe, would just turn into a bulletin board of ineffective flyering. 

To put it all in a few sentences — engaging the NC public school culture war on Reddit proved the most impactful and efficient use of my time. I ultimately failed to meet my goals, but I built some relationships along the way. My biggest regret is not starting the work sooner as it took time to build the karma and skill I needed to meet other public school supporters across NC.

PitaBreadFace has entered the cosmos of North Carolina political discourse and there’s no turning back until we build a populous and engaged NC public school supporting community.

If you’d like to schedule a time to discuss reddit or tiktok organizing or to get access to my scripts and set-up materials please email sijal@kairosfellows.org