The Pernicious Political Effect Of Social Media— A Personal Essay By Jeff Rasley

My 2017 book, Polarized! The Case for Civility in the Time of Trump, made the case that social media could be used as a means to bridge the divide between Red and Blue voters. That was then. This is now, and in this now it is apparent that, to the contrary, social media, like cable news, is a means to divide rather than unite Americans. But some background first.

After the shock of Trump’s 2016 disastrous victory wore off, I decided I wanted to try an experiment using Facebook as a medium to reduce the toxic polarization that developed during the 2016 presidential campaigns. I began the experiment after Trump’s inauguration in 2017 by inviting my Facebook friends to participate in a forum of weekly discussion threads about political topics. 63 friends initially agreed to participate. The number of participants increased to 80 during the course of the experiment. They included pro and anti Trump, blue and white collar, Baby Boomers and Millennials, high school grads and PhDs, from urban and rural areas and from various states. The discussion topics ranged from immigration reform, confirmation of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, US policy in Syria, relations with Russia, collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, the firing of Comey, the Paris Climate Accord, and even abortion. The only rule was that no personal attacks should be directed at other participants. 

Nasty remarks were posted about Trump, Hillary Clinton, and other political leaders. But the rule of no ad hominem attacks among participants was honored. The experiment was planned to last two months of weekly posts. It was so successful in promoting civil exchanges of views among people who had opposing political views that several of the participants wanted to continue the discussions. So we extended it another month. 

While my Facebook forum was cultivating civil discussion among voters of different persuasions during the first year of Trump’s first term as President, he was not binding the nation’s wounds. Instead, President Trump was posting inane and ugly tweets about anyone he perceived as opposed to or disloyal to him. And, it got worse and worse, as his followers and opponents more and more followed his lead by using social media as a means to attack and divide.

After the, once again shockingly disastrous Trump victory in 2024, I would absolutely not consider hosting or participating in a “bipartisan” political discussion forum on any social media platform. I am still active in Twitter (I refuse to call it X), Linkedin, and Bluesky in a political context, but my participation is almost totally siloed, because almost all political discussions in social media have devolved into silos of pro and anti Trump threads. I, like many other Blue voters, regularly post rants against Trump. But now, only rarely will a pro Trumper dare to comment in one of our threads. When that happens, the Trumpist is blasted with angry replies and ad hominem attacks. The exact same thing occurs in the pro Trump silo. (I don’t post about politics in Facebook anymore, just photos of my cat, Poppy, and travel documentaries. After a few ugly confrontations with pro Trump friends, I decided to reserve Facebook for apolitical happy talk.) 

On the one hand, it makes me sad that I no longer have fruitful exchanges with people who voted for Trump. On the other, I am so pissed off at them for not recognizing he is a fascist or that they knowingly support a fascist, I no longer want to engage with them about politics online or in person. And I am not alone. In Polarized! I describe poll data and analytical research that was available in 2017 about the way social media (and other forces) were exacerbating partisan divisiveness and encouraging extremism on both ends of the political spectrum. More current polling data and research show that trend continues to accelerate.*

In the Polarized! book, I describe, what was then a new organization, devoted to promoting civil discourse between Red and Blue voters. Better Angels seemed like the perfect organization to continue the experiment I performed, but through a nationwide network of local chapters, and through in-person meetings, not social media. So I helped to start a chapter in Indiana, and wrote a supportive article for its national newsletter in 2019. However, after the attempted coup by Trump on January 6, 2020, I lost all interest in working with Better Angels to promote civil discourse and understanding between pro and anti Trump voters. 

I wish our body politic would be cured of its current infection of extreme polarization and Americans could once again engage in civil discourse about politics regardless of party affiliation and political ideology. However, I do not foresee that as long as Trump’s maga movement controls the Republican Party. So, what is most important in this now, is to wrest power from the Trumpists. And that is how I devote the political energy I have left.

*An example of more current research and polling is “The Role of (Social) Media in Political Polarization: A Systematic Review,” Annals of the International Communication Association. It’s conclusion:

“We find that most studies find a link between selective exposure to (social) media and political polarization and that most experiments find that media exacerbates both ideological and affective polarization... These results are concerning as all studies assessing the polarization of media content over time find that news media and social media are increasingly becoming partisan and polarized. This suggests that users and viewers of media may continue to become increasingly ideologically and affectively polarized in the years to come.”