Make your voice not just heard but effective.
Emotions, like anger, can work against you sometimes.
We live in a world where everyone is able to express their opinions publicly every nanosecond. Freely expressing yourself is America’s DNA. But personal expression is different than political and civic engagement.
Too often, voters take to social media as an emotional release, says Tufts professor Eitan Hersch. They drop rage on X, or perform on TikTok. It’s often about them — a “me” world instead of a civic-minded “we” world.
Anger or any number of other emotions can, in some cases backfire, step on your message and turn people off from the political point you’re trying to make.
I can’t imagine how much time and energy is spent on expressing political feelings as opposed to doing concrete actions that have an impact.
Politics is an emotional enterprise. Visceral emotions fuel participation and engagement. But wearing anger or finger-wagging moralizing publicly on your sleeve, i.e., on social media, isn’t always helpful.
Make your voice heard, sure. But also make it effective.