Although Trump may be gone, Twitter will continue to influence politics and policy

It’s 3 a.m. and the president is no longer tweeting.

It’s been more than a month since Donald Trump left the White House and even longer since Twitter permanently suspended the account of the former president on Jan. 8.

Unlike Trump, President Joe Biden is not offering round-the-clock updates and the collective temperature of Washington communications may have come down a few ticks as policy changes or breaking news are less likely to come in the middle of the night. But absent the visceral nature and frequency of the former president’s tweets, there remains the question about the next chapter of social media as a mechanism for political engagement in Washington.

The answer likely resides in our legislative institutions, where on Jan. 6, lawmakers felt the harsh reality of the angry political rhetoric that can spread across Twitter’s networked communities. Former President Trump may have been the most vocal and prolific policymaker to foster a political brand on Twitter, but that reputation-building began more than a decade ago in Congress and will continue to influence how lawmakers both run for office and govern.

Over the last 10 years, social media has quietly, but permanently changed the business of representation in Congress because how we connect with elected officials and the reputations they build are now accessible while waiting in a socially distant line for coffee.

Members of Congress are now part of our daily digital digest, where Instagram stories and Twitter threads tell us about the lives of their pets but also frame their policy priorities. Some lawmakers are known for their unique social media styles, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (accessible and effective) or Chuck Grassley (deer-hunt docent), but all politicians are incentivized to use digital media to shape the political debate. Though it often appears that debate is primarily steeped in partisan politicking, the implications of this digital dance extend into policymaking and legislative priorities.

Lawmakers’ communicated, public priorities — what I term the rhetorical agenda — allows them to paint a picture for journalists and the public about who they want to be in office. And though it may seem otherwise, a big part of that picture is the policy and legislative priorities that make up a lawmaker’s agenda. For U.S. Senators, more than 60 percent of the tweets sent include some policy-relevant information.

These policy priorities are not likely to be tweeted under the moonlight — as in the case of the previous White House occupant— but they are poised to signal lawmakers’ policy preferences, where they stand, and what is at the top of their agenda. The nature of these policy cues is dependent on the lawmaker, but among members of Congress, the nationalized nature of public policy and the incentives to engage a national constituency online lead to salient policies dominating the debate.

If the antecedent to action is attention, then what members of Congress are tweeting about inevitably will affect the policy decisions being made. And the incentives of Twitter to distill issues into consumable bites will mean that complex issues with a less sexy profile, like infrastructure and rural broadband access, may lose out to issues like healthcare or immigration.

Not all lawmakers pursue a national profile on Twitter or use their platform to gain leverage on any policy debate, but as the incentives for policy expertise and nuance dwindle in a social media dialogue, the tenor of Congress will further resemble a battle of fists and wits over polarizing policy problems.

Social media isn’t just a platform for constituent service, but rather a viable tool to reinforce policy and political priorities in a way that will inevitably shape what lawmakers are equipped to pay attention to and act on.

Members are no longer getting 280-character policy initiatives from the White House anymore, but the future of policy formulation and implementation is likely shaped by the reputation-building that members continue to do online.

This social-media dominated landscape means the information voters have about their elected leaders is likely to come down to priorities and preferences on salient or hot-button issues because that is what lawmakers are discussing on Twitter with journalists and partisans. And the implications for policy are equally important because public support for less salient policies will dwindle and policy expertise on local issues or complex policy is dis-incentivized despite an increasingly sophisticated and connected world.

Annelise Russell is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of Kentucky and faculty associate of the U.S. Policy Agendas Project.

This story was originally published April 1, 2021 at 5:24 PM.