When Donald Trump tweeted, the world listened. More than that, the world reacted. A new @realdonaldtrump Tweet represented an endless array of possibilities—would he announce a new policy? Refute the results of the 2016 election (that he won)? Attack Alec Baldwin? No matter the subject, every Tweet was the start of a predictable news cycle that would remind the public how Trump was an “unconventional political outsider,” which fed directly into his populist appeal.
While Trump’s use of Twitter was seen as novel in 2016, it has become clear that a strong social media presence is part of the new normal for the political outsider. Though it has always been the case that new mass communication tools affect how politicians engage with the public, social media appears to have taken that to a new level. Politicians are now expected to engage with the people constantly, which, when applied to political outsiders, can present a particular risk to democracy. Specifically, because social media rewards users for maximizing their own engagement, the political outsider, and especially the complete outsider, is incentivized to adopt populist messages, subvert democratic norms, and further political division in order to succeed.
The Political Outsider
Political outsiders have long been a staple of American politics. Outsiders claim that the political system is broken, and that because of their unique perspective, they can help fix it. Notably, Americans tend to like outsider politicians. According to a 2018 Monmouth University poll, 52% of Americans would prefer an outsider candidate to an insider candidate. American political outsiders can be split into two distinct groups: “Insider Outsiders” and “Complete Outsiders.”
Insider Outsiders
According to the same 2018 Monmouth poll, 61% of Americans viewed having political experience as a positive for candidates. While these two results may appear contradictory, they point to a common phenomenon in American politics where candidates with some political experience will campaign as outsiders. For example, in 2008, despite being a member of the United States Senate, Barack Obama campaigned as an outsider because of his age, race, and policies. Often, as was the case with Bill Clinton and George Bush, governors will run as outsiders, claiming that they’ve gained experience legislating and leading outside of Washington.
Complete Outsiders
While insider outsiders have some sort of experience in the public sector or military, complete outsiders do not. Typically, complete outsiders campaign at the local or congressional level, as, after all, all politicians need to start somewhere. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, for example, was a bartender before running for New York’s 14th congressional district. Most notably, Donald Trump was the first complete outsider to successfully win the presidency.
Defining Populism
While outsiders often campaign on changing the status quo, their messages don’t necessarily reflect a threat to democracy. Rather, outsiders can be threatening to democracy when they adopt populist platforms, as was the case for Donald Trump. According to Jan-Werner Müller’s What is Populism?, populism is a set of political ideas that pits a fictional, morally perfect conception of “the people” against a corrupt, morally imperfect or evil “elite.”
Because populism transcends any sort of left-right ideological spectrum, it can take many forms. However, all populist movements tend to hold a deep distrust of existing institutions, experts, politicians, and any other part of the “elite.” While inflammatory language is not a requirement for the populist, they often use emotional, moralizing rhetoric in order to stoke fear and outrage against the “elites.”
Within the US, left-wing populists like Bernie Sanders will claim that our political problems are a result of corporate greed that exploits the working class—”the people.” Right-wing populists like Donald Trump will claim that our political problems are a result of a Washington establishment that is out of touch with middle America and the Christian Right—”the people.”
As Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz argue in How Democracies Fall Apart: Why Populism Is a Pathway to Autocracy, populists often claim that democracy has been hijacked by the elites, and that they can fix it. However, as is often the case, successful populists tend to leverage their popularity to undermine norms, punish internal dissent, and reward loyalists with positions in important institutions. In other words, though populists claim to represent the will of “the people,” they often subvert democracy for personal gain. For outsiders looking to galvanize support, adopting populist messages can be seriously lucrative, especially online.
The Effects of Social Media
As is the case globally, social media has been a disruptive force in American politics. Trump’s tweets have moved markets and poll numbers, mass social movement mobilization happens in a moment’s notice, and misinformation pollutes political discourse. But how exactly does social media shape the behaviors of political outsiders? Evidence suggests social media amplifies outsiders’ tendency to use inflammatory populist rhetoric as a mobilizing tool.
Some scholars, like Nils Gustafsson and Noomi Weinryb, suggest that social media is changing the way that populist movements function. They argue that social media subverts democratic institutional middlemen like civil society organizations and the media. After all, why would I join a formal nonprofit activist organization when a Facebook group can mobilize me faster? Why trust the media to give me news when I can get it faster from Twitter? Why would I trust the government to help me pay my hospital bills when I get better financial assistance from my Gofundme page? In other words, social media provides a platform to bypass existing institutional channels in favor of potentially more efficient and effective results. Naturally, this phenomenon leads people to distrust those institutions, creating fertile ground for digital populists to succeed.
Gustafsson and Weinryb also point to user engagement as a core component of modern digital populism. For political outsiders to succeed on social media, they must seek to maximize their user engagement, or how much people interact with their content. For relatively unknown candidates, and especially for complete outsiders, this presents a unique problem. According to Pew, candidates who regularly post more incendiary content, including attacks on political opponents and opinions on polarizing topics, tend to receive the strongest engagement. In other words, complete outsider candidates have a strong incentive to lean into populist messaging. While populists are already known to use emotionally charged language, social media gives them a direct reward for their language. Indeed, populist candidates tend to accrue significantly more social media followers and name recognition than their more moderate counterparts.
For example, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Madison Cawthorne, and Lauren Boebert have all accrued a combined one million Twitter followers. Their populist appeals have boosted their political profiles significantly, giving them an even larger platform to spread their views.
Consequently, when a mass of networked political actors individually seek to promote a set of similar populist messages, that movement shifts from rallying around a single charismatic candidate to rallying around to what Gustafsson and Weinryb call “charismatic situations.” The most notable recent example of this is the fallout from the 2020 presidential election, where right-wing populists vehemently contested the validity of the results. By rallying around a shared conception that the election was stolen, Trump’s populist movement can far outlast the man himself. If many smaller populist figures reinforce a similar message, they can unify around any candidate they want to represent the wider movement.
If Gustafsson and Weinryb’s analysis continues to hold true, that could present serious risks to democracy. We’ve already seen how Trump’s populist rhetoric has appeared in all levels of government, threatening civil rights in the process. The most recent example comes from recent restrictive voting reform laws, which conservatives across the country claim will protect their elections from nonexistent widespread fraud, echoing Trump. If future complete outsiders work to make populism more resilient, that could mean that any democratic backsliding today may be harder to reverse tomorrow.
Populist Outsiders: The Status Quo?
Although social media is a new phenomenon, outsiders and populists have been part of the political status quo since the earliest days of democracy. Democracy has survived insider outsiders like Andrew Jackson, Ronald Reagan, and Herbert Hoover. It has also survived complete outsiders like Arnold Schwarzenegger. So how can we say contemporary outsiders, insider or complete, present a novel risk to democracy? The answer comes down to social media. Prior to social media, if someone wanted to gain enough name recognition to be politically competitive, they had to appear on radio or TV, both platforms with a high barrier to entry. On social media, however, the barrier to entry is far lower. Someone’s viral TikTok or Tweet can accrue them hundreds, thousands, or millions of views and followers seemingly overnight. Candidates who capitalize on their social media presence can catapult themselves into political prominence, as was the case with Marjorie Taylor-Greene or Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. These complete outsiders have a strong incentive to maximize their digital engagement, as every follower, like, and retweet reflects another opportunity to gain wider name recognition. As it stands, populists appear to achieve comparatively strong engagement metrics on social media platforms, which means that complete outsiders are encouraged to adopt their rhetoric in order to succeed.
Conclusion
While no candidate is required to use populist language or tactics, because social media rewards users for maximizing their own engagement, the political outsider, and especially the complete outsider, is incentivized to adopt populist messages, subvert democratic norms, and further political division in order to succeed. Across the board, those who seek to maximize their digital political engagement are encouraged to use more emotional, moralizing, and norm-breaking rhetoric. While that’s true for all politicians, complete outsiders often need to accrue far more name recognition than established figures in order to succeed. Therefore, they are at a higher risk of adopting the kind of populist messaging that threatens democracy.
This was a very interesting post. I agree with your logic, that political outsiders, in competing for name recognition and popularity use increasingly sensational or “like-able” messaging on their social media platforms, and that this can contribute to the problem of potentially damaging democracy by increasing populism. One thing I wonder, however, is how this is going to look moving forward, because you astutely pointed out that it is a phenomenon on the left and the right (and not just a “Trump” problem). How much of this can be considered malicious, and how much of it is simply our culture changing and adapting to a new digital landscape? Perhaps if we made our voting system less elite and costly (such as providing publicly funded campaigns, putting a check on campaign contributions from private donors, and limiting the length of a campaign season to a few months) perhaps we could mitigate the problem a little bit. Maybe that would reduce the need for perceived “outsiders” to rely on clickbait and potential disinformation to sensationalize a political cause, and thus receive enough social media attention to thrust them into the public eye.
The use of social media has become essential to running successful political campaigns. Social media provides an easy way for politicians to directly communicate with their constituents. The effect is more substantial for the presidential race as the candidates have the ability to communicate with millions of people using social media apps. The author provides many key ideas that argue the newfound use of social media motivates populistic remarks, especially from political outsiders. Moreover, the way in which candidates use social media is becoming more important and raises concern about the openness of elections and other possible uses of social media.
Trump pioneered this phenomenon when he entered the presidential race in 2016. His use of twitter to communicate with the public allowed him to spend less money on media coverage and reach more people. Although Hillary Clinton outspent Trump by a two to one ratio in the 2016 election, Trump’s novel ways of using social media earned around $2 billion worth of free advertising in the primaries alone (Persily). This free coverage comes from retweets, comments, and even from media networks talking about his tweets, allowing him to reach more people for less money. Even though Clinton had about 10 million twitter followers to Trump’s 13 million, Trump was able to convey a sense of authenticity through the use of twitter and Facebook live that the campaign ads Clinton used could not. Traditionally, candidates would have to go on shows, get interviewed, or produce ads in order to communicate with the public, but Facebook live allowed Trump to communicate with voters while controlling the message. By using Facebook live, Trump could plan what he wanted to say and not have any surprise questions that he might receive if he were to do an interview. Social media provides a direct connection to voters that has not been seen in traditional media use.
However, the use of social media has also encouraged extreme and populist rhetoric by political candidates. Populism implies a candidate’s role as the only authentic representative of “the people” and as a moral exemplar for the public. As the author describes, Pew indicates that candidates who post the “most incendiary content, including attacks on political opponents and opinions on polarizing topics, generally receive the strongest engagement.” The attacks discredit the legitimacy of opponents while enhancing theirs. Trump supporter’s election fraud claims after the 2020 election exemplify their trust in Trump. Furthermore, opinions on polarizing topics are often examples of extreme rhetoric, such as Trump’s refusal to denounce white supremacy and his inflammatory remarks about Mexicans and building a wall between the United States and Mexico. Trump’s use of extreme rhetoric contributes to the free media that he received in his campaign and incentivizes its use as the author claims. The extremist rhetoric often provides simplistic solutions to complex issues. For example, someone believing that a wall will not only stop immigrants from crossing the United States and Mexican border, but that it will also solve other unrelated issues in the United States.
Another issue with social media use is misinformation and confirmation bias. With how easy it is to access information with social media, it also becomes that much easier to access false information. When people like Trump who use extreme rhetoric, it can elicit severe actions from their followers, such as storming the capitol. The use of extreme rhetoric makes people believe, without warrant, that they have absolute right on their side, in a hubristic manner (Gutman). The storming of the capitol is only one example. The claims of election fraud had no evidence to support them, but the people who rushed the capitol still believed in Trump’s right to rule, illustrating the power of one person’s influence.
Trust in one source of information promotes single-mindedness because it leads to distrust towards any other sources of information. Because the people who rushed the capitol believed that the election was stolen from them based on a claim with no evidence, the dangers of social media are vulnerable to populistic and extreme uses. Anybody who can use social media to control the actions of their followers could impact a presidential race, including people with no political history. Another cause for concern is that when people form misperceptions, like the election being stolen, they often do not believe information that proves otherwise (Nyhan). Therefore, even when people are misinformed, they generally cannot be convinced that their conclusions are wrong. The distrust in alternative sources of information promotes polarization and exemplifies a confirmation bias. People will look for and only believe the information that they decide to be valid, increasing extremist belief and political polarization. These behaviors elicit more extreme evaluations of people who are not part of one’s community and stronger responses from people of the same community.
Overall, the prevalence of social media use in elections has incited the use of populist and extreme rhetoric in order to strengthen a candidate’s following. Although social media is an efficient way for direct communication, it can manifest animosity between difference groups and intensify divisions in society. Furthermore, the reinforcement of one’s belief through social media generates more polarization in society through confirmation bias and backfiring effects that ultimately discourage political discourse, a keystone of democracy.
Compared to presidencies of the past, the presidency of Donald Trump shook American politics to its core. Trump’s unruliness in office gave many Americans reason to question his qualifications, his intellect, and his morals. With such a vast population harboring intense feelings against Donald Trump, how could such a man win an election? Powerful rhetoric, a weak center, and the millions feeling displaced in their own land all were certainly aiding factors, yet it was particularly the power of social media that carried Trump over the finish line. The presence of social media has altered America’s political climate in ways that question pillars of America’s democracy. While all politicians have begun to utilize the power of social media, few recognize or are sufficiently unrestrained by moral character to abuse social media in ways that exploit and manipulate their following. Unfortunately, former president, Donald Trump, was no stranger to capitalizing off the manipulation of social media. With social media amplifying Trump’s populist agenda, American consumers of social media were plunged into a network rumor and of conspiracy, ultimately allowing for the victory of Donald Trump.
In order to understand Trump’s abuse of social media, one must first gain an understanding of Trump’s following. Demographically speaking, Trump’s followers are usually older, conservative, religious, less educated, and are white males. They live mostly in southern states and usually in more rural areas. The reason these citizens’ attraction to Donald Trump is outlined by Hochschild’s “Strangers in their own Land”, where she claims that southern white men feel as though they have been “cut in line” by racial minorities and women. With Obama as president, racial minorities received extra benefits even though left-behind citizens view them as unworthy (Hochschild). These left-behind citizens feel culturally marginalized, economically insecure, and part of a demographic decline. Such feelings of abandonment, threat, and resentment find outlets in the populist agenda of Donald Trump, where his charisma and appeal to emotion validates the left-behind (Hochschild). This section of Trump’s following is perhaps most pure, as Trump simply had to reap the benefits of dissatisfaction from the previous presidency. Rather than making an appeal through social media, this group needed only emotionally charged rhetoric and reaffirment from Fox news.
While a section of Trump’s following was practically given, Trump’s use of social media garnered additional followers from alternate demographic groups. As a political outsider with no previous experience in any government institutions, Trump used social media to spread rumor and conspiracy in order to stand out among other candidates. By magnifying existing rumors about his opposition and spreading misinformation, Trump poisoned his direct, unfiltered line to the masses. This unfiltered line took many forms, including news outlets, social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, and most dangerously, video stations such as Infowars. Infowars, an extreme right conspiracy channel run by Alex Jones, was in fact highly influential in Trump’s election as Infowars was already very popular with citizens who were highly politically involved and highly knowledgeable (“United States of Conspiracy.”). Trump’s alliance with Infowars served as validation for Infowars’ extreme conspiracies and also transferred Infowars’ followers to Trump (“United States of Conspiracy.”). A side effect of such attempts at collecting supporters was the subsequent conflict and deepening polarization between the two major parties.
With Donald Trump expanding polarization between the two parties, room for hostility, anger, and rivalry grew. In fact around the time of the 2016 election, the strongest predictor of strength and hostility was partisanship (Iyengar). With the most polarized citizens constantly being reinforced by Trump’s twitter posts, where he tended to “tweet like an entertainer” to amass attention, anger among citizens of differing parties were not as a result or affected at all by factual evidence (Bulman). Trump fueling the fire between parties was in fact a pull for followers. Increasing anger directed toward the opposing party increases the sense of rivalry (Iyengar). The citizens most moved by rivalry are the most intensely partisan in the most competitive races (Iyengar). In such cases as the storming of the Capitol, it is these most intensely partisan citizens that mobilize and lead the party. Particularly in line with Trump’s populist rhetoric, there is also a moral dispute where if the opposition is victorious, there is a fear that democracy will be destroyed. Trump used the fear of a corrupted America to bolster hatred for the opposing party. In order to ensure a win, Trump added the pressure of a close election to mobilize the most partisan of his followers to push his populist agenda. All of these combined factors would have been much less effective without the presence of social media, where Trump’s ability to communicate directly with all citizens allowed Trump’s campaign to seem deceivingly personal.
In essence, the presence of social media contributed enormously to Trump’s 2016 victory. Not only was Trump able to amass an unusual amount of followers through an appeal to emotion and the use of a variety of social media platforms, he was also able to mobilize his followers during his years in office. With regulation of social media being calling into question the basic rights of citizenship, social media’s role in the political arena and especially in the election of a populist president is not to be undermined.
Works Cited
Bulman, May. “Donald Trump’s ‘celebrity-Style’ Tweets Helped Him Win US Presidential Election, Says Data Scientist.” The Independent, 28 Nov. 2016, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-twitter-account-election-victory-president-elect-david-robinson-statistical-analysis-data-scientist-a7443071.html.
Hochschild, Russell Arlie. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. First Trade Paper, The New Press, 2018.
Iyengar, Shanto, and Sean J. Westwood. “Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 59, no. 3, 2014, pp. 690–707. Crossref, doi:10.1111/ajps.12152.
“United States of Conspiracy.” FRONTLINE, uploaded by Frontline, 28 July 2020, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/united-states-of-conspiracy.