Elk Grove Vanity Scale: Which Local Politicians Use Facebook for Public Service — and Which Use It for Self-Promotion?

Much like sexual entertainment pornographers, politicians and their handlers have been adept at harnessing new technology. This has been true since the advent of social media.

Like every aspect of American life, social media has become part of almost everyone's daily routine. Whether it is posting selfies on Facebook or expressing concern about suspicious youth on NextDoor, it is rare to find someone entirely disconnected from social media.

At its best, politicians and their vast following can use social media to convey important constituent information. At its worst, social media is a vice amplifier appealing to the innate vanity of elected officials.

From this perspective, and thanks to an implied suggestion from an Elk Grove News subscriber, we decided to take a look at social media postings of several elected officials representing Elk Grove residents.

The Facebook postings of these elected officials over the last few months reveal that a majority suffer from the delusion of their self-importance and display classic narcissistic behavior. There is also, for good measure, elitism on display.

In a coming podcast, we'll take a closer look at some of these practices. Suffice it to say, we are, by and large, represented by money-grubbing self-important narcissists as measured by their Facebook postings.

All in all, it wasn't terrible, though. There were three exceptions, however, on our soon-to-be-revealed Five-Star Elk Grove elected officials vanity scale. Let's take a quick look at three of the least offensive postings from an elected official representing Elk Grove.

Elk Grove City Councilmember Kevin Spease

As the sole Republican on the Elk Grove City Council, the second-term council member largely eschews selfies and pictures with other elected officials, including his Democratic city council colleagues, who seemingly can't resist being photographed with other elected officials. A 21st-century version of name-dropping, we suppose.

Other than an occasional shot with his wife and business partner, Angela Spease, who serves on the Cosumnes Community Service Board of Directors, his Facebook images tend to be taken while on vacation or at non-political events. We could not find any evidence of self-serving selfies or an overabundance of posing with politicians that are a contagion with his four Democratic colleagues.

Overall, Mr. Spease judiciously uses social media, which is admirable. For this pattern of discretion, Spease earned the following rating on the Vanity Scale, with five stars being complete vanity.

We would have awarded Spease a perfect score, save for one thing. Using a reverse logic of sorts, Spease, who has over 3,400 Facebook followers, could utilize his platform to convey useful constituent information.

We would like to see more posts like this from Councilman Spease.

Senator Angelique Ashby

Of all the relevant elected officials representing Elk Grove residents, State Senator Angelique Ashby displays by far the least vanity and the most self-restraint.

Although Ms. Ashby appears in group photos with other elected officials on their social media platforms, as far as we could see over the last several months, the first-term Senator does not post pictures with other elected officials, as most Elk Grove elected officials do.

Furthermore, her frequent Facebook posts focus on constituents and their activities, not on her own. Also, Ashby's team posts other relevant information for District 8 residents.   

While we may not agree with the Senator on some of her stances, or with Mr. Spease as well, there is no denying they struck the right balance on her Facebook post. Simply stated, the posts are not about her, they are about us.

For this, Ashby scored a perfect zero stars on the Vanity scale.

Other aspiring elected official would be well-served to follow their example.

Below is a typical Facebook post viewers will see from Senator Ashby.