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Op-Ed Contributor

Donald Trump Trolled Us All. We Should Learn From It.

A supporter of Hillary Clinton at the Javits convention center in New York on election night.Credit...Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

For more than a year, Americans were glued to their smartphones as Donald J. Trump tweeted and retweeted misogynistic, racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic speech. It was not a strategy that any digital campaign expert would ever advise. Often, it felt more like a reality-show stunt than a real campaign.

But it worked. And the result is very real. Mr. Trump’s unorthodox social media campaign helped him beat more than a dozen other candidates, enjoy free media coverage that would have cost billions, become a major-party nominee and win the presidency.

While we Democrats reject his message, we must learn from his tactics if our party is to evolve and protect our priorities from a Trump presidency and Republican Congress. Democratic campaigns must stop looking at social media as a one-way communication device for amplifying overproduced campaign messages. The true power of social media for politicians is unleashed only if they use it to make emotional connections.

No amount of digital savvy will take you across the finish line if you don’t have a message that resonates. This year, many voters were angry and felt left behind by a political system and an economy that favor the wealthy and well connected. Bernie Sanders, whose presidential campaign my company worked on, heard this anger, and offered a message of political revolution to overhaul a rigged system that found wide online support. Unfortunately, in the end, Hillary Clinton’s campaign message didn’t offer these voters what they were looking for.

Mr. Trump did hear them, though — giving them something dark and divisive in response. Mr. Trump’s unlikely rise to the top of the Republican ticket was fueled by voters who felt they weren’t being heard by party elites. As I watched the Republican primary unfold, I saw a party that had created an opening by failing to listen and engage with its base. Mr. Trump filled that space.

Even as he went off the rails, attacking Senator John McCain’s wartime military service, party leaders did not hold enough sway with him or the voters to force him out of the race or make him change course. Instead, Mr. Trump reached new lows, and his supporters came along for the ride. Despite all campaign logic, Mr. Trump’s provocations were not to be his fatal flaw but a breakthrough tactic.

Clearly, Mr. Trump took #NoFilter to the extreme, but all candidates need to be more authentic online. However appalled we may have been by Mr. Trump’s tweets, they did not feel washed through a political spin machine. Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign famously required the approval of 22 staff members for each tweet. And most politicians are still getting their tweets approved by committee.

For those who struggle to find their authentic voice online, newer technology has made it easier than ever to get real. Imagine if Mrs. Clinton had ditched the script, the teleprompter and the overproduced videos and posted a cellphone video telling America that she was fired up on an issue. That she was mad and going to stand and fight. And that this fight was personal. If you use it right, social media can give people insight into not only how you think, but how you feel.

Instead, the Clinton campaign too often chose gimmicks over real heartfelt messages. Contests to have dinner with celebrities, talking to us in emoji, and hashtag campaigns like #ImWithHer may have spoken to some of her supporters. But these campaigns failed to address the real pain and suffering in places like the industrial Midwest. These voters are on social media, too.

There is no downtime for public figures on social media. Our president-elect is continuing to tweet and so should Democrats. Twitter keeps voters involved in the conversation, so politicians need to continue the conversation with them even when it’s not election season. Don’t build up a social media presence to tell voters your innermost thoughts and then stop talking to them the day after the election is over. That’s a bad breakup.

But engagement alone is not enough. Democrats need to use social media to disrupt the news cycle as well. Mr. Trump showed us that tweeting at 3 a.m. can change what everyone is talking about during the morning commute, for good or for bad.

In future campaigns, Democrats will need to devote even more resources to social networks than they did in 2016. Misinformation spreads quickly on social media, and it’s only going to get worse. More and more Americans are watching events unfold in their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat feeds rather than turning to news sites and candidate websites. Campaigns must correct the record with their own social media posts as well as have promoted posts and internet ads ready to go or suffer the tangled mess of thousands of falsehoods retweeted as uncontested facts.

This is not the first election where we have seen hate speech emerge online. In 2007, I was the Obama campaign’s external online director. I monitored more than a dozen social networks, setting rules for what was, or wasn’t, appropriate for posts and comments. We were not going to allow anonymous internet bullies to dominate the conversation or spread lies about any of the candidates, even our opponents, on our social platforms. Our mission was to run these social networks like a modern version of the way a congressman’s office communicates with constituents, using them to provide factual answers to every possible question about the campaign. The goal was to show voters we could have a conversation about the campaign without sexism, racism or other forms of bigotry.

Even as social media was revolutionizing campaign communication, it was also being used to send threats. By May 2007, things had become so bad that Mr. Obama received Secret Service protection before any other presidential candidate. That same month, CBS News announced it was turning off the ability to comment on any article mentioning Mr. Obama. The comments were so offensive, so racist, that they made it difficult for the site’s visitors to receive balanced news.

This year, it’s the candidate, now president-elect, leading the charge with his own offensive comments. Mr. Trump brought these kinds of fringe attacks to the mainstream. News organizations played right into Mr. Trump’s hands. They prominently displayed his latest tweet, looping his latest insults and amplifying hate speech for the sake of eyeballs and profits. Mr. Trump trolled to the point where he himself attracted the attention of the Secret Service for comments he made about his opponent.

As the minority party in Congress and with a President Trump in the White House, Democrats will need to bring people together around issues with new ferocity. We need to make our case better, faster and more authentically than ever before. As evidenced by his loss in the popular vote, many Americans have had enough of Mr. Trump’s antics. Our base is active and engaged, turning Mr. Trump’s words against him with empowering hashtag campaigns, from #MuslimsReportStuff and #BadHombre to #NastyWoman.

It’s the job of Democratic leaders to now keep these voters engaged. Democrats can’t wait until next election season to really talk to their constituents online. Do not cede ground to those who would build a campaign based on hate or entertainment value. So, Democrats, let’s mourn our losses for another minute, then get online and tweet our hearts out, propose solutions and listen to what voters say.

Scott Goodstein is the chief executive of Revolution Messaging.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

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