Social media is replacing our politicians with caricatures
Imagine that it’s the year 1858. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas are vying for the Presidency. Their now famous Lincoln-Douglas debates were three hours long and amassed crowds of up to 15,000 people. By the thousands, Americans gathered in harsh weather to listen to the lengthy discourses on the issues that pervaded their country.
Flash forward to the current era, and the recent 2024 presidential election shows just how much times have changed. Presidential debates consist of shorter, alternating questions between candidates. An even starker contrast to presidential campaigns of old is where campaigning takes place: online, separate from the “real world.”
Social media has become a new ground for political campaigns — by no means an insignificant one. Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign spent $180 million on digital advertising across Meta and Google alone. With over half of Americans getting their news from social media, this is a legitimate strategy. However, studies have found an almost negligible impact of social media on voting patterns and political behavior.
Even if political ads on social media don’t affect voter behavior, there is evidence that they do have some effect in strengthening our opinions of what we post. For example, someone who posts in support of one candidate will have increased assurance in their belief because of the inevitable stream of “likes” from dozens if not hundreds of people validating their ideas, which is positive engagement at a scale not replicable in ordinary life. Thus, social media becomes an incubation tank, in which our thoughts become more extreme and less in touch with the outside world.
This incubation tank of opinions is thus used to reinforce a new value social media has deemed important to politicians: entertainment value, or where trending images of our preferred candidates satisfy our dopamine-fried brains. When we see concerning behavior like then-candidate Donald Trump dancing for 40 minutes at his rally, we see humor instead of cause for alarm. By reposting such videos, we legitimize this humor and reduce our politicians to mere entertainment.
At times, it seemed like candidates wanted this — catering to short-form videos that pervade social media and allow things to go viral. In an attempt to “prove” that Harris lied about working a summer job at McDonalds, Trump posed as a McDonald’s worker — handing out frys “on him” to drive-through customers. If he intended to draw social media attention, he certainly succeeded. Users flooded feeds with posts of the stint. At its peak, it even inspired the “Trump working at McDonalds” Halloween costumes which supporters proudly donned and no doubt posted — reinforcing this entertainment frenzy.
Harris also took advantage of social media. In July, her X account launched a neon green banner with “kamala hq” written on it in all lowercase, clearly a reference to the trending Charlie xcx album “brat” and the “brat summer” trend it inspired. Charlie xcx herself responded, tweeting “kamala IS brat.” Of course, this drove users across platforms to create content of them displaying “kamala” signs in the brat-ian style.
In a similar attempt to capitalize on what is currently trending for social media attention, Harris invited Megan Thee Stallion to open for her Atlanta campaign rally in July. She transformed the rally into a shocking and easily trend-able affair, donning a crop top and announcing her slogan “Hotties for Harris” before dancing to songs titled “Body” and “Savage.”
Some criticized Harris for including Megan Thee Stallion. My friend confided in me that she wasn’t voting, despite disliking Trump, because Harris was “an embarrassment” — referencing the performance. Still, though Harris may have missed this time, her decision to use social media in her campaigns and our perceptiveness to it reflects a shift in the way we view political figures.
In replacing long, nuanced policy arguments with the humorous, accessible online presence of Harris and Trump, we begin to see politicians as personalities: unserious agents for our short-term entertainment. When I undoubtedly seemed shocked at my friend for dressing up as the aforementioned “Trump at McDonalds,” she laughed, showed me videos of other people’s costumes and explained that it was funny. This sentiment isn’t rare: I’ve heard many people endorse Trump because he’s at least “entertaining.”
These perspectives and the recent 2024 election campaigns illuminate how social media has created a type of “unreality” that prioritizes that politicians be “funny” before they be policymakers and leaders. The political landscape then becomes almost dystopian in its skewed values and endorsement of the absurd over the reasonable. I am reminded of The Atlantic’s We Are Already Living in the Metaverse, in which Megan Garber explains that “we’ve become so accustomed to [social media’s] heightened atmosphere that the plain old real version of things starts to seem dull by comparison.”
For us, politicians being “real” by prioritizing policy and engaging with voters offline has become boring, so instead they appear on our Instagram feeds according to the latest trends. It’s obvious why we no longer stand in the fog at three-hour long debates — politics has become a game where we watch the avatars of our politicians play a source of fast and cheap entertainment for the masses.
This transformation of politics into a spectacle poses serious consequences. When we reduce politicians to caricatures, we undermine the seriousness of their responsibilities. We are left with leaders who prioritize trends over truth, and virality over vision. This shift doesn’t just entertain us — it distracts us from the policies and debates that truly shape our future.
It’s time to log off, step out of the echo chambers of social media, and re-engage with politics as citizens — not spectators — before the caricatures fully replace the leaders we need.
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