Democracy Protection Is Suddenly The Top Political Issue Mentioned Online
Immigration was the top political issue online for most of 2024. Until now.
Republicans, led by Trump, made the collective decision at the beginning of this year to focus on immigration over all other policy-related topics.
Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, aided by online influencers and cable pundits, were able to whip up enough anger about it among their base that the issue started to be taken seriously even by non-MAGA Americans - earlier this year, immigration became the top political issue according to both the polls and number of social media posts.
That was then. As of July, discussion of immigration is being absolutely swamped by conversation about protecting democracy:
This is partially event-driven (the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision) and partially driven by growing awareness of Project 2025, which got a big boost when actor Taraji P. Henson gave an off-the-cuff speech about Project 2025 on the live broadcast of the BET Awards.
GOP still trying to make immigration happen, but mostly failing.
It’s not as if Republicans have gone quiet on the immigration front - Trump mentioned the issue a number of times during the debate, and Speaker Johnson tried to pass a bill related to elections and non-citizens (who are already barred from voting by federal law), earning a boost from none other than Elon Musk.
Still, it was not nearly enough to jump-start the immigration conversation, perhaps because border apprehensions are now at a three-year low.
I have a theory about this sudden urgency on behalf of democracy - the increase in posts comes right on the heels of the Trump-Biden debate, which, as this newsletter detailed last week, fueled the largest single-day online conversation about Biden of his entire Presidency.
In fact, if there’s a silver lining to the post-debate clouds gathering over the Democratic Party right now, it’s that far more attention is being paid to the consequences of a Trump victory.
Elections are about the future, and now everyone knows the stakes.
2024 is unusual in a number of ways, one of which is the fact that both presidential candidates are running mostly on their past records as president (or against the record of their opponent), with less focus on their future plans.
Project 2025, and the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, have altered that dynamic. Together, they offer a vision of a future Trump agenda that amounts to a plan for an anti-education, anti-freedom, pro-corporate dictatorship.
Welcome to the campaign for the future. With Project 2025, Democrats have a platform they can run against every single day from now until November - a clear picture of what America will look like if Trump wins.
And Project 2025 is currently the largest part of the democracy conversation - when looking at the number of posts for each subcategory of democracy protection, the SCOTUS immunity decision had the highest one-day total, but Project 2025 had more overall mentions, and continues to drive the conversation, while the immunity decision has mostly faded in comparison.
Another interesting detail: posts mentioning Project 2025 reached their highest level (so far) on July 5, the day after Americans celebrated Independence Day. It could be that hearing about a plan that would curtail freedom so radically after honoring the Land Of The Free was especially jarring, and made Americans more likely to share content about it.
Who is showing the most interest in Project 2025?
While men were more likely to share posts mentioning democracy (55% men/45% women) and the SCOTUS immunity decision (53% men/47% women), women were more likely to mention Project 2025 by a ten-point margin (55% women/45% men).
Further, the conversation about Project 2025 is younger than the other two conversations (note that these are not numerical totals being compared, but shares of each conversation among different age groups):
In short, posts mentioning Project 2025 are more likely to be shared by women and younger Americans than posts mentioning the SCOTUS immunity decision or general mentions of democracy.
Trump’s effort to distance himself are failing
Trump has been trying to claim that he knows “nothing” about Project 2025. However, Americans are not buying it (and Trump probably created a Streisand effect with his post). Trump’s name is explicitly mentioned in 40% of posts talking about Project 2025:
The consequences of a Trump victory appear to be fueling a huge conversation about democracy protection, with Trump’s future plans at the very heart of the dialogue.
Next week, assuming another game-changing event doesn’t occur before then, we’re going to dive deep into the discussion to create a Project 2025 Messaging Guide - exploring which messages are being shared the most so far, and what they have in common in terms of rhetoric, style, format, tone, etc.
Stay tuned.