Against Very Online Candidates

Election season is here. It is always election season online. Even while most of us celebrate the holidays, aspiring politicians prepare legal forms and campaign strategies. From the municipal to the federal level, candidates are declaring their intentions, crafting their public images, and selling us on their agendas.

Unfortunately, many of them seem committed to campaigning in the most annoying and superficial ways possible.

You’ve undoubtedly encountered what’s best described as a Very Online Candidate. This critter is quickly overpopulating the public square, apparently lacking a natural predator.

Very Online Candidates have a hard time distinguishing reposts on X or Instagram from votes. They are obsessed with seeming a certain way yet care not at all about being that way. They spurn traditional analog virtues—thriftiness and prudence in creating wealth, charity and honor in real community service—in favor of digital influence. They’ve never done much of anything, but they seem perfectly comfortable telling you how to live your life.

Very Online Candidates come in as many shallow, mindless forms as TikTok dances. Two subspecies are particularly common, probably because they adapt so readily to different habitats.

The first is the Pontificator. This type’s niche is Facebook and LinkedIn, although it’s no stranger to other online biomes. Pontificators specialize in breezy posts designed to diminish competitors’ standing without making specific (and therefore refutable) accusations. They frequently portray themselves as public-spirited outsiders challenging parochial, clubby insiders. And they are deliberately informal and conversational. Pontificators try hard to seem relatable—too hard, in fact. What’s intended to convey sincerity and relatability in fact comes across as cringey and unserious.

The second is the Mannequin. This one thrives on visual-media platforms. The Mannequin is a master of camouflage. Every photo op is perfectly staged. Every utterance is a pristine, poll-tested platitude. Eager to be seen with more established and influential figures, the Mannequin thrives by free-riding off the social status of others. The governing agenda—if there is one—is a mile wide and an inch deep. Calling the Mannequin superficial is like calling the Pope Catholic: strictly speaking true, but it’s such a massive understatement that the similarity conceals more than it reveals.

What all Very Online Candidates have in common is the habit of conflating talking and doing. Often they have a background in activism, political organizing, or similar activities that elevate processes over outcomes and prioritize style over substance. They genuinely think the world responds more readily to emotive demands than cooperation through coalition-building. And, as Yuval Levin recognized, they treat civic institutions as platforms for self-promotion rather than formative structures that both require and reinforce good character.

In contrast to the always-be-posting style of Very Online Candidates are their more normal competitors, who use the internet in a responsible way: to organize town halls, release policy agendas, reach voters they might otherwise miss, and, when relevant, share something of their personal story. These campaigners are firmly rooted in actual, three-dimensional reality. They often have confronted hard trade-offs in their lives, such as sacrificing to make payroll so employees don’t go empty-handed during the holidays, or scrounging to ensure a church soup kitchen can feed the hungry. They are not saints—very few people are—but their virtues are real and eminently practical. Most importantly, they refuse to conduct their campaigns in a Very Online manner because they regard it as demeaning to the people they seek to serve.

Very Online Candidates ultimately disqualify themselves from public service. Politics is not a lifestyle brand, and governing is not performance art. Very Online Candidates offer the illusion of participation without the substance of leadership. Voters should demand better—not because seriousness is fashionable, but because the work of governing real people in the real world requires it.

Image Credit: Jørgen Roed, “An Artist Resting by the Roadside” (1832) via Wikimedia.