Want to Perform? Get Elected to Congress as a Member of the GOP.

Back in the 1950’s when I was a kid (here we go again) the men and the occasional woman who served in the Senate and the House of Representatives had no way to make their voices heard beyond an occasional interview with the local newspaper or maybe holding a meeting of their constituents once a year.

So, if you ended up with a seat in either chamber on Capitol Hill, you spent most of your time either listening to testimony at a committee hearing, or meeting with lobbyists in your office, or giving a speech in your respective chamber which would be printed in The Congressional Record which nobody read.

This relationship between those who govern and those who are governed began to change with the advent of C-Span and the televised deliberations of Congress in 1979. It’s not just a coincidence that the first, 24-hour TV network — CNN — began broadcasting the following year.

Now, for the first time, our elected representatives could begin thinking about themselves as media performers, even though they had no control over what performances the media decided to show.

All this changed with the internet and social media, along with the fact that virtually everyone above the age of six or seven now has their own, personal internet connection which doesn’t even require…