In Politics, Social Media Has Supplanted Experience

By Christian Schneider

Thursday, February 19, 2026

 

In the summer of 2007, a couple of hundred Lollapalooza music-festival-goers wandered to a side stage to see a little-known songstress sing along to a pre-recorded backing track. Video taken of the performance shows the audience reacting with confusion — onlookers are nearly universally stone-faced as the scantily clad woman writhes around the stage performing songs they’d never heard. It is likely the first time anyone in the small crowd had heard the name “Lady Gaga.”

 

Within two years, Gaga would be one of the most famous people in the world. But like many music stars, she played show after show to tiny crowds who wondered what planet she had descended from. This is what we expect of our music stars — years of honing their craft playing small bars, malls, bar mitzvahs, and the like. For some, it takes decades to become an overnight sensation.

 

This was once how politics worked in America. Political novices typically began their careers on a city council, working their way up to the state legislature, then maybe earning a place in the U.S. House or Senate. Building support was a slow, laborious process, as was learning how to write laws, negotiate compromises, and engage in effective public relations. Taking on angry constituents at town halls thickened the skins of elected officials and made them more rhetorically nimble.

 

But in the social media era, spending years honing one’s political craft appears to be a waste of time. Voter support isn’t gained by spending late nights at school board meetings or glad-handing at parades — it is far easier for aspiring politicians to simply build their name online. In effect, political experience has been supplanted by political attention.

 

In other words, it is now clear that we have more rigorous job requirements for our meat-dress-clad pop stars than for our elected officials.

 

Consider Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose rise was less the product of party grooming than of viral moments. Her Instagram Live sessions, Twitter clapbacks, and carefully curated online persona did more to elevate her national profile than any committee assignment ever could. AOC did not slowly accumulate influence; she arrived with it pre-installed, courtesy of millions of followers who already felt they knew her.

 

Naturally, there is nothing wrong with serving as a bartender, as Ocasio-Cortez did, before a career in Congress. A world governed by bartenders would be a better place — they are good listeners, they deliver what people want, and they know how to balance the books. But one would hope that some actual governing experience had occurred during her adulthood before she was thrown into the world of both domestic and international politics.

 

For instance, at an appearance in Munich last week, AOC provided this less-than-Churchillian answer to a standard foreign policy question: whether the U.S. government would send troops if China invaded Taiwan:

 

Um, you know, I think that, uh, this is such a, you know, I think that this is a, um, this is of course a very long-standing, um, policy of the United States. Uh and I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point and we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise.

 

Any other politician might then ask for their name to be retroactively added to the Epstein files to draw attention away from such an embarrassing answer. But it’s drawing attention to her, and she’s fine with that.

 

In the social media age, what matters is not whether a member understands the intricacies of legislative markup or has thought about critical world issues, but whether she can distill a moment into a clip that thrives in the algorithm. In this environment, being wrong is less damaging than being boring.

 

The same phenomenon is visible on the right. Donald Trump did not rise because of his experience crafting legislation or governing institutions. He rose because he mastered the attention economy. Twitter was not merely a communications tool for Trump; it was the job. Each tweet served as a press release, rally speech, and opposition research memo rolled into one. Trump understood that in modern politics, outrage is a renewable resource.

 

That lesson was not lost on a generation of aspiring politicians who watched Trump turn social media dominance into political inevitability. His online presence did not supplement his campaign; it was his campaign. The traditional markers of experience became irrelevant once he proved that commanding the national conversation mattered more than commanding a committee room. But to borrow a phrase from Mark Twain, treating the U.S. presidency as an entry-level job is like trying to “build a house by beginning at the top.”

 

This shift helps explain the rapid ascent of ridiculous figures like Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat who spent only two years in the Texas House of Representatives before her 2022 elevation to Congress; she is now seeking a U.S. Senate seat. Crockett’s most visible contributions to national politics are not pieces of legislation but moments engineered for maximum digital spread. Her confrontational exchanges in hearings and profane outbursts are not designed to persuade colleagues across the aisle; they are designed to perform for an audience far beyond the room. The clip is the product. Governance is incidental.

 

In a system that rewards virality, politicians behave rationally by seeking it. If a viral confrontation earns more political capital than months of quiet coalition-building, the choice is obvious. The problem is that the skills required to go viral — speed, certainty, theatrical outrage — are often the opposite of the skills required to govern effectively. In the past, governing might produce drama, but now the only point is drama.

 

Even politicians who present themselves as intellectuals are not immune. Vice President JD Vance vaulted from author to senator without any previous governing experience, and it shows. His ascent did not come from years of cultivating local political networks; it came from mastering the national conversation. Vance’s political apprenticeship took place largely online, in front of an audience that already shared his worldview.

 

What unites these figures is not ideology but method. They did not climb the ladder; they took the elevator, and social media was the operator.

 

But this demonization of experience has now made elected office the one job in America where having trained for the job becomes a liability. Today, never having had the job is a qualification. Imagine telling someone, “I’m not concerned the guy I hired to keep me off death row didn’t go to law school — have you seen him dance on TikTok?”

 

Further, the political minor leagues are where candidates learn to take a position and stick with it. Learning to defend a policy choice is an important part of the job — if you’re just dropped into the position with no practice, it is easier to flit between positions depending on the mood of the moment. There’s no need to read books on economics or law — the only book you need is Facebook.

 

This also helps explain why governing feels so dysfunctional. Anyone with a phone, a ring light, and a knack for provocation can build a following large enough to demand a seat at the table — whether or not they are prepared for what happens once they get there.

 

None of this is likely to reverse itself. Voters are not going to stop consuming politics the way they consume entertainment, and politicians are not going to stop responding to incentives. But it is worth acknowledging what we have traded away. In our rush to elevate the loudest voices, we have devalued the quiet competencies that once defined public service.

 

Lady Gaga had to learn how to command a stage. We elect politicians and just hope they figure things out during their first gig.