Trump Has A Twitter Presidency. Is Twitter Important In The House Too?

The Tweeter by Nancy Ohanian

There are about 30 members of the House with twitter followings over 100,000-- and just 5 with over a million followers. This is an indication of power-- the power to communicate to a large number of people and make a message go viral and fundraising power as well. The average member has around 30,000 followers.

Some of these accounts have big followings because the member is on MSNBC, CNN or Fox frequently. With some it comes with the office they hold and with a few it's because their accounts are lively and controversial-- or because they are. Do any of these surprise you?

• Paul Ryan (R-WI)- 3.62 m
• Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)- 1.78 m
• Alexandria Ocasio (D-NY)- 1.62 m
• Adam Schiff (D-CA)- 1.12 m
• Beto (D-TX)- 1.08 m

• Trey Gowdy (R-SC)- 963k
• Ted Lieu (D-CA)- 892k
• Joe Kennedy (D-MA)- 720 k
• Eric Swalwell (D-CA)- 414 K
• Devin Nunes (R-CA)- 339 k
• Jim Jordan (R-OH)-- 304 k
• Darrell Issa (R-CA)- 302 k
• Keith Ellison (D-MN)- 371 k
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)- 366 k
• Ilhan Omar (D-MN)- 282 k
• Steve Scalise (R-LA)- 265 k
• Elijah Cummings (D-MD)- 245 k
• Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)- 216 k
• Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)- 202 k
• Mark Meadows (R-NC)- 202 k
• Louie Gohmert (R-TX)- 178 k
• Justin Amash (R-MI)- 145 k
• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)- 135 k
• Seth Moulton (D-MA)- 135 k
• Joaquin Castro (D-TX)- 131k
• Jackie Speier (D-CA)- 126 K
• Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)- 122 k
• Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)- 114 k
• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)- 106 k
• Peter King (R-NY)- 106 k

I swear this post didn't start out as another paean to The Four Freshmen, but it would be hard to not notice that 4 out of the 30 are freshmen who haven't even taken their seats yet-- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NYC), Ayanna Pressely (Boston), Ilhan Omar (Minneapolis) and Rashida Tlaib (Detroit). John Nichols made me do it-- by pointing out how these 4 weren't just resisting Trump-- they were outylining the alternative to Trumpism, capturing the public-- and twitterverse-- imagination in the process. He calls them the "most valuable progressives," which could make that vile slug Claire McCaskill give up the ghost.

Omar announced that the newcomers-- two of whom had defeated Democratic congressmen in the primaries, two of whom had won crowded primary contests for open seats-- “did not come to play.” Fox News disapproved; it featured an image of the quartet with the headline “Radical New Democratic Ideas: Free College for All, Free Health Care for All, Abolish ICE, Green New Deal.” Ocasio-Cortez replied: “Fox News discovered our vast conspiracy to take care of children and save the planet.”

Yesterday, Rashida sent a note to voters in her Detroit-area district: "I’m ready to hit the ground running in Congress. And I don’t need corporate CEOs to teach me how political change works. This month, along with my colleagues, I attended a 'bipartisan' program at Harvard University billed as 'the preeminent educational and preparatory program' for incoming members of Congress. But, instead of discussions about implementing an agenda for the American people, the program consisted of speeches from corporate CEOs and lobbyists from companies like Johnson & Johnson, Boeing, and General Motors-- which is in the process of slashing thousands of jobs in my district by closing its Detroit plant; a devastating hit to our community. Among the presenters at this event for incoming Congresspeople was Gary Cohn-- Donald Trump’s former economic advisor and former president/CEO of Goldman Sachs-- who told us that 'you guys are way over your head' and 'you don’t know how the game is played.' Guess what, Gary? The game just changed. I’m going to Washington to represent working families, not corporate lobbyists and CEOs. Together, we are part of a new movement-- bringing activism to Congress and putting people over corporate profits." Don't you wish you had a Rep. in DC like Rashida? You could, you know.

Iron worker and progressive union activist Randy Bryce, as you know, didn't win his Wisconsin congressional race. But... he achieved his original goal of getting Paul Ryan out of Congress and his very active and very influential twitter feed still has over 268,000 followers, far more impactful and influential than the average member of Congress.

Nichols has another category-- Most Valuable House Player-- which he awards ti Ro Khanna (D-CA), someone who I follow closely on Twitter and who I was shocked to see has only 69,400 Twitter followers, while having one of the most valuable and perceptive policy-oriented twitter-feeds of any member of Congress. True, he has more than double the number of followers that the average member has but-- if you're not following Ro... change that today. As Nichols wrote, he "spins out more ideas in a week than most House members produce in a congressional career. In his freshman term, he emerged as the chamber’s most ardent and courageous advocate for a new approach to foreign policy by promoting engaged diplomacy as an alternative to ever-expanding Pentagon budgets. To that end, Khanna worked with Mark Pocan to end US support for the Saudi war on Yemen, and with California Democrat Barbara Lee to scrap the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which presidents have routinely used as justification for military interventions since 9/11. He also urged his colleagues to take risks in supporting the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. That would be sufficient to earn him a place on this year’s honor roll. But Khanna has also stepped up as the savviest advocate on communications and technology issues in the House, circulating a pitch-perfect Internet Bill of Rights. And he moved to the forefront of the fight for corporate accountability, sharing credit with Sanders for getting Amazon to raise wages and declaring: 'I am not in the House to appease special interests, so it’s fine if Big Pharma and defense contractors don’t like me. I don’t work for them. I work for ordinary Americans who can’t afford a lobbyist.'"