Ruling by Social Media: Has Leadership Become a Popularity Contest?

I keep hearing it more and more — decisions that shape the future of nations are now being made not in parliaments, not in cabinets, but on Facebook feeds and trending hashtags. The world has arrived at a strange point where sentiment online dictates strategy offline.

I come from a small island, Malta. Having been involved in how politics works there, I was surprised — but perhaps not shocked — to see how much of it has become a game of populism. Decisions aren’t necessarily taken for the long-term good of the country, but for the short-term applause of the people. Popularity over policy. But when I turn my gaze to the United States, and watch how President Trump runs the largest superpower, I realise it’s the same story, only magnified.

Daily operations of the President of the United States, once shielded from public spectacle, are now broadcast live on social media. It’s no longer about what’s done in the Situation Room, but how it plays on Twitter, Facebook, or TikTok. Just this week, I came across a CNN piece about FBI officials suing, claiming their dismissal was driven by social media bullying. Imagine that — careers of senior officials determined by online mobs rather than institutional process.

This raises a troubling question: what has the world become?

The democratisation of voice — something once celebrated — has given everyone a platform, but it has also given everyone the power to steer. Nations, once guided by principles, now risk being pulled in whatever direction a trending sentiment demands. It feels less like governance, more like a show.

And with that, politics has entered the fame economy. Politicians behave more like influencers than statesmen. The metric of success is not whether a policy works, but whether it racks up likes, shares, and praise. Leadership has been replaced by performance.

But in politics, unlike in fairy tales, not everyone gets to live “happily ever after”. Policy, by its nature, creates winners and losers. Hard choices mean some will sacrifice for the greater good. Yet today’s policymakers seem obsessed only with the win — the applause, the positive headline, the viral clip — while ignoring the harder truth that leadership sometimes means delivering decisions people won’t like but society needs.

If nations are being built on likes rather than principles, we may well get our happy endings online — but at the cost of reality offline.