Moderate Politicians Just Aren’t Sexy

It turns out that ideologically extreme politicians are more popular on Facebook. A study shows the most liberal and most conservative House members had a median of 14,361 followers as of July 25, compared to 9,107 followers for politicians that fall in the middle.

The Senate follows a similar pattern. The most liberal and most conservative senators have a median number of 78,360 followers, while ideological-moderates had 32,626.

Although it is not completely clear why the moderate politicians have less followers, here are a couple of interesting suggestions from this report:

·      Very liberal or conservative politicians tend to share content expressing disagreement with the other party’s views, which are more likely to be shared by Facebook users than less incendiary posts.

·      Media outlets reward politicians with extreme views with more coverage and airtime. Therefore, they are likely to be well-known.

I feel it is a bit sad that extreme is the cool thing to be, when every indication is that what this country needs to move forward and progress is lawmakers willing to meet in the middle and work together. I follow maybe 3 politicians. And it is due to their Facebook ads appearing in my newsfeeds making it convenient for me to click to follow. Interestingly, all of these politicians are locals who I believe all lost their elections. So, they may or may not be politicians anymore.

Do you follow any politicians on Facebook? If so, what drew you to hit the ‘Like’ button?