Katerina Parizkova

By now, if someone questions my beliefs, morals or political stance, they’d just have to go read the 50 plus pieces that I’ve published on The Chronicle. Half of which are political pieces.

Yes. I follow multiple members of the Trump administration on social media.

No. I do not support them.

The two do not correlate as much as people think.

Time and time again, I see people post on TikTok about how “disappointed” they are that their favorite celebrity is following someone they don’t like.

Or they go on to boast about how they unfollowed and unfriended people because their follower list says they followed President Donald Trump.

Following a certain candidate on social media does not mean that you support them. I see absolutely nothing wrong with following people from all over the political spectrum. In fact, I highly encourage it.

Following the president and his administration allows me to get the stupidity straight from the source. Especially as a student journalist who runs this Opinion section, it’s material in the palm of my hand.

If someone comes up to me and says, “Did you see what the president just said on Instagram?” I will often believe it, because, well, this man doesn’t exactly have much of a filter. Of course, I fact-check anyway. So, if I’m following him, it’s going to come up on my feed, and I’ll be able to see the latest horrendous updates for myself quicker.

It’s not about support, it’s about staying up to date with politics. It sounds ridiculous. But with so much on social media, it’s realistic that some people get their information this way.

Yes, I watch the news and can get the information that way too. I don’t support social media being the main source.

I’m specifically referring to posts made by Trump, most of which don’t even get discussed, no matter how ridiculous they are. If I have the opportunity to witness firsthand, why wouldn’t I?

Also, my focus in politics is literally political communications. That means analyzing how candidates and politicians use media.

Do you think I want to be following any of them? No, absolutely not. I would love it if my feed were memes and hopecore. However, I decided to go to school for politics in 2023. So, I signed away any flicker of joy on my social media the minute I decided to dedicate my life to politics — specifically political communications.

I understand if you don’t know the person who is following Trump, you may just assume the worst. But I swear to all things holy if I hear that someone unfollowed me because they saw that I followed someone like Trump, I might lose what’s left of my sanity. Because if you know me, you know that’s not the case.

How are you going to base your whole judgment on someone based on the following list? If it were me being unfollowed, they’d just have to Google my name, and they’d see where I stand politically.

I understand liking posts being a bit more problematic. But at the same time, I don’t want a judgment being made about my morality because I double-clicked out of habit.

Following politicians that you don’t agree with or hate is actually better if you want to debate or critique them. So let’s stop judging morality and political stances based on the following list.