Social media is now shaping election outcomes as the first generation raised with it reaches voting age.
Considering social media’s impact on election outcomes is only beginning to be studied, its increasing polarization has serious negative consequences for underrepresented minorities in the United States and around the world. It’s no secret social media’s greatly affecting the democratic process in countries worldwide. With vast amounts of information at our fingertips, and exposure to diverse views, social media has a strong liberating potential for democracy.
However, this potential comes with significant risks. While social media can amplify marginalized voices and foster civic engagement, it also creates echo chambers, where algorithms prioritize content that reinforces existing beliefs. This not only deepens ideological divides but also fuels misinformation and polarizing rhetoric, challenging the very foundations of democratic discourse.
Alongside the rise of social media, another trend has emerged since 2016: growing for the United States President-elect Donald Trump. Since Trump’s 2016 election, his brand of populism has surged, reshaping political allegiances in ways few could’ve predicted. Fast forward to 2024, after losing in 2020, Trump has staged a comeback, winning against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
What’s most shocking about this outcome isn’t that Trump won, but the shifting demographics of his ers. Despite Harris’s strong campaign for abortion rights and female representation, post-polling data indicates that female for Trump has risen from 41 percent in 2016 to 45 percent in 2024.
Republican votes from the Black population also rose from eight to 13 per cent since 2016, 28 to 46 per cent among Latino voters, and 27 to 39 per cent for Asian voters. The 18 percentage point increase amongst Latino voters is especially surprising, considering comedian Tony Hinchcliffe compared Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage” at a Trump rally just days before the election.
The Trump campaign has long been bolstered by anti-immigrant and xenophobic sentiment. During the 2024 presidential debate, Trump propagated the false claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield Ohio were eating domesticated cats and dogs.
The growing presence of social media in political campaigns is undeniable. Trump has tweeted 50,022 times since the 2016 election. Both Trump and Harris heavily catered to online audiences during their campaigns by appearing with social media content creators such as Joe Rogan, and podcast host Alex Cooper. Politicians are increasingly careering to the younger generation, Trump allegedly consulted his 18 year old son Barron Trump before appearing with popular live streamer Adin Ross.
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Sixty-seven percent of respondents to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report survey between the ages of 18 and 24 say the Internet is their main source of news, including social media. The fear is that if social media breeds polarization, its growing presence in the political sphere will only further xenophobic attitudes in the US, ones that Trump harnessed throughout his campaign to secure victory in this year’s election.
Concerns surrounding the of politics’ prevalence in this interactive public sphere centre on the formation of an “us vs. them” ideology towards immigrants and racial minorities. These ideologies perpetuate hate speech, harassment, and a terrifying uptake in violent hate crimes towards historically underrepresented groups.
The use of anti-immigrant, racist, and xenophobic rhetoric is not isolated to political campaigns, it extends across the population, encouraging attitudes and mobilizing extremists. In 2015 and 2016, violent hate crimes increased by around 13 per cent , while the national crime rate fell by two percent. Between the second and third quarter of 2016, the US experienced a noticeable spike in hate crimes toward underrepresented groups, raising concern. This directly coincides with Trump’s campaign and presidency.
These statistics on hate crimes don’t even consider verbal harassment and indirect discrimination experienced by underrepresented groups in the US, and around the world.
The overall fear with social media in politics is that it increases extremists’ abilities to connect and base their ideologies on the exclusionary rhetoric of populist leaders.
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