For me, politics is about working with other people to influence the government. And you can influence the government by convincing people who they should vote for, or by interacting with politicians and lobbying them; in either case, you are getting these other people, whether they’re politicians or citizens, to take some action they wouldn’t otherwise take.

The reality is that the people who spend the most time consuming news and arguing online are disproportionately college-educated white people, and right now that demographic is predominantly Democratic. This isn’t to say that this sort of behavior doesn’t happen on both sides, but it’s mostly on the left.

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When you’re a hobbyist, you’re learning the wrong information and practicing the wrong skills. You are typically learning about big national news items, and oftentimes it’s just drama. So a hobbyist might learn all the details of the Mueller report and feel that’s important to know and will spend hours and hours on it.

But then if you asked him how he could get involved on some issues of importance in his local community or in his state, or where the pressure points are in his community to influence government, he has no idea. He’s just caught up in the national news cycle and he’s not actually improving anything.