Likes, Comments, and Rhetoric: Demagoguery in the Age of the Internet and Social Media

As the internet and social media have created spaces for politics, they have also facilitated the opportunity for demagogic behavior to become accessible and widespread online. This thesis compares how Donald Trump and Kamala Harris utilized social media in their respective 2016 and 2024 campaigns. It examines why Donald Trump’s online use was demagogic and harmful to political practices. I begin by defining demagoguery, providing two case studies of how demagogic behavior has existed in politics, and explaining different constraints against demagoguery. Through a history of the impact of technology on politics, I describe how the internet has evolved to include political discourse. Then, I observe how politics online can have negative impacts on the individual and social levels. By placing these ideas in conjunction with how Harris and Trump used social media in their different campaigns, I explain how Trump’s demagoguery was most strongly presented online, specifically on the social media platform X. Donald Trump revolutionized social media as a new space to center politics as he infiltrated it with demagogic behavior such as the spread of information, reckless statements, encouraging national division, and attacking government institutions. The resurgence of demagoguery to online platforms prompts a close monitoring of the internet and the new influence it can have on American politics.