If it feels as if everyone you know on Facebook is angry about politics these days, you’re not alone.
A new Pew Research Center study of how members of Congress — and their constituents — are using the social network in the Trump era finds that people are smashing the “angry” button in reaction to congressional Facebook posts way more than they did in 2016. The angry option has skyrocketed in popularity and now surpasses all other emotional reactions to congressional posts.
By contrast, the most popular emotion in 2016 was “love.”
Pew finds that the shift is driven, at least in part, by what lawmakers are choosing to post to the social network. Among Democratic lawmakers, for instance, posts expressing opposition to President Trump, Republicans or conservatives skyrocketed after the 2016 election. The Pew study found that “30% of the average Democrat’s posts in 2017 contained some form of opposition toward Trump, Republicans or both.”
And, as it turns out, oppositional statements turn out…
