By: Emmet Paradis
Edited by: Nicole Cannock
Politics has always been performative, but social media has turned performance into the point. In 2024, politics wasn’t just about who would run the country, it was about who could look the part. The U.S. election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, along with Canada’s showdown between Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney, both reveal how politics has become less about policy and more about aesthetic identity.
With the rise of social media, we can now guess someone’s political leanings by their posts, music taste or style. Harris supporters leaned into Brat Summer pinks, irony-soaked TikToks, and posts about reproductive rights. Trump loyalists doubled down on flags, faith, and anti-woke energy. Every look, post, and meme was a signal, not of thought, but of belonging.
A recent study from the Pew Research Centre found that “news influencers” on social platforms spoke about Trump far more than Harris, but were harsher toward her overall. Visibility mattered more than substance, and the campaigns themselves mirrored that logic.
Harris’s team built a “digital war room” of Gen-Z content strategists making TikToks and memes to humanize her brand. Trump, meanwhile, kept performing, playing the loyal patriot turning anger into a show.
Even campaign spending reflects this new performance economy. Between mid-summer and fall 2024, Harris’s campaign outspent Trump’s nearly tenfold on Facebook and Instagram ads. These platforms aren’t just arenas for debate, they’re stages, and the algorithm rewards whoever performs outrage best.
That aestheticized politics seeps offline too. You can assume a voter’s leanings by the truck they drive, the shoes they wear, or by the brand of beer they drink. In a world of constant visibility, politics has merged with taste.
The “country guy” in a lifted Dodge flying a Canadian flag performs conservatism just as the progressive with a tote bag and septum piercing performs liberalism. Each aesthetic is rewarded in its own algorithmic bubble.
Gender plays into it, too. Political identity online has become a form of attraction. Some men posture as anti-woke or libertarian to project masculinity and confidence. Others adopt feminist, progressive tones to signal empathy. Politics isn’t just argued; it’s flirted through. Outrage posts, hot takes, and moral stances double as dating strategies.
Beyond attraction, social media has also turned activism into performance. Reposting an Instagram reel about feminism, Indigenous rights, or Palestine has become a moral gesture that often substitutes for real involvement. People now treat their stories like protest signs, brief digital proof that they “care.” It’s easier to share a post than to show up at a rally, donate, or volunteer, and algorithms reward this kind of shallow participation.
The line between awareness and action has blurred, and visibility has replaced responsibility.
The same logic now governs Canada’s political landscape. Pierre Poilievre has been branded a “mini-Trump” by critics, a populist who harnesses anger, mockery, and spectacle to connect with voters. His digital strategy relies on viral short-form videos attacking Liberal “gatekeepers.”
Meanwhile Mark Carney, often referred to as the Liberal establishment’s answer, represents a different aesthetic: composed, technocratic, and globalist. The divide is less ideological than stylistic, the vibe versus virtue, populism versus professionalism.
In this performative era, sincerity can feel impossible. We perform morality online as much as we perform humour or fashion. To stay visible, we must appear informed and passionate, even if our engagement is fleeting.
Outrage becomes a performance of care. Silence looks strategic. The internet has trained us to react first and reflect later, because the algorithm doesn’t reward patience.
This isn’t to say performance makes politics meaningless; performance is how humans express values. But when expression replaces action, when political identity is reduced to a lifestyle aesthetic, democracy starts to look like a talent show. Social media doesn’t just amplify politics, it scripts it.
As 2024 proved, success in politics no longer depends on logic, education and persuasion; it depends only on visibility. The candidates who mastered the performance didn’t need to win the debate, they just needed to dominate the feed.
Image Citation:
Skidmore, G. (2020). Donald Trump [Photograph]. Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons License). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donald_Trump_%2850548265318%29.jpg
References:
Baran, Y. (2024, February 19). What Kind of Populist is Pierre Poilievre? Policy: Canadian Politics and Public Policy. https://www.policymagazine.ca/what-kind-of-populist-is-pierre-poilievre/
Bush, D. (2024, October 10). Harris Vastly Outspending Trump on Social Media in Election Run-Up. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-donald-trump-facebook-instagram-google-election-2024-campaign-social-media-spending-1966645
Harwell, D. (2024, September 13). The ‘feral 25-year-olds’ making Kamala Harris go viral on TikTok. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/09/13/harris-tiktok-social-media-team/.
Stocking, G., Wang, L., Bestvater, S., & Widjaya, R. (2025, February 6). How news influencers talked about Trump and Harris during the 2024 election. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/06/how-news-influencers-talked-about-trump-and-harris-during-the-2024-election/.