Political tension is the most reliable attention engine in existence. It has been for centuries, and the mechanics of why have not changed regardless of the platform, the era, or the medium. When a society is politically charged, millions of people are simultaneously in a state of heightened arousal about the same general subject matter. They are scanning for information that confirms their worldview, they are primed to react emotionally to content that challenges it, and they are motivated to share what they consume because sharing is itself a form of tribal signaling. Every share, comment, and hostile reply is...