An Insider's View of the #SOTU

The Tweet-Up was an amazing opportunity to actively participate in the State of the Union address! To give a brief recap, the speech heavily focused on the economy and job creation through American innovation.  In fact, the President only devoted 13% of his address to international affairs, astounding considering the United States and the world are facing many global challenges.

 In a speech that was full of specific plans and detailed programs on domestic policy, Obama’s commitment to combating violence and intimidation by supporting human rights worldwide was surprisingly bare of specifics.  While saying that America has a huge stake in the outcome of transformations happening around the world, there was no explanation of what the U.S. is doing to actually save lives and protect the human rights of those at risk.  He could have mentioned progress on the Atrocities Prevention Board he established last year, additional U.S. actions to help the Syrian people or his Administration’s efforts to work more closely with the U.N. Human Rights Council on preventing and monitoring human rights violations.

Despite my disappointment in the lack of substance on global policy, I was amazed at how the White House engaged the public so thoroughly through social media.  Providing activists and average Americans with the tools to ask questions to senior level Administration officials right after the State of the Union was absolutely unprecedented. Twitter reported that 645,631 tweets were made during the actual speech alone. The White House YouTube channel reports that, as of noon on Wednesday, 185,507 people have submitted 99,340 questions to the Administration about the State of the Union.

The social media efforts following the State of the Union prove that every single American can have a say in the “Blueprint for an America Built to Last,” and that the Obama Administration will listen to those voices.  The Administration’s commitment to bringing everyone into the conversation on our nation’s future was perhaps the most inspirational, encouraging piece of last night’s speech.  

Now that we have been brought in, it’s more important than ever that we use this social media opportunity to bring the conversation back to foreign policy! Post on Global Solutions and White House Facebook pages, tweet @CGS_DC  @WHlive @Whitehouse, use #SOTU and #WHchat, comment on the White House YouTube channel, and use any other social media you have to tell the White House foreign policy is important!  It’s possible for international affairs to get overshadowed in an election year, but if we successfully use these opportunities to show how foreign policy is an important issue to the American people, the Administration will respond.