It’s not fair.

It’s not fair that we can’t trust the average publication to tell us what matters anymore.

It’s not fair that we have to be knowledgeable about political procedure.

It’s not fair that there isn’t a trusted place to go to see who we should be paying attention to.

And just because it’s not fair doesn’t mean we can just sit there waiting for it to happen anyway.

You’re never going to see all the Democrats who are doing the work. You’re never going to see the amazing webinars the DNC is putting on. This month that includes trainings on how to put on a food drive and know your voting rights. You’re not gonna hear about that anywhere, unless you go looking for it.

The algorithms want to keep us scared and angry and hopeless, because the more we feel those things the longer we’ll stay on social media, which means the more ads we’ll see. Remember, it’s all about stealing our data and selling us ads.

But there are ways to see what’s happening, to find our fighters, without putting in too much work:

Turn on notifications.

Not for everyone, god that would be a nightmare, though you would very quickly see that our Dems are always posting.

But maybe 10 Dems at a time. Choose 10 Dems who you are convinced are doing absolutely nothing, and create a starter pack for them on Bluesky, turn on their notifications on IG, Threads, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter (if you use it), TikTok, if they use it, and subscribe to their Substack, if they have one.

A few weeks later, switch them out, just remember to do this for both their government and campaign accounts or else you’ll only be seeing half the work they’re doing.

Following doesn’t guarantee you see everything, let alone anything, but this will. This is a way to still, essentially, have it handed to you on a silver platter, without actually trusting the journalists to give it to you.

I does suck, we shouldn’t have to do this on our own. We should be able to trust broadcast journalism and print journalism to show us what matters, but we can’t, so we must pivot.

And if you’re response is, “but, Ariella, if their posts are good, I’ll see them anyway!”

That’s not how it works. If it was, everyone would see my posts, but they don’t, most of my posts get around 10k views across all platforms. If you can understand the concept of shadow banning for your favorite creator, you must understand it for politicians too.

Speaking of, if you like my content, you should turn notifications on for my posts. That is, quite literally, the only way you can guarantee you see every post I make. Again, frustrating? Yes. But that doesn’t make it any less the reality we live in.

We have to adapt if we want to stay informed. And adapting is sure as hell more productive than whining.