So there's coronavirus. It's still new, and we're still learning. As I observe the toxic public discourse, I can help but wonder, how in the hell did we get here?
In the last 20 or so years, we've had other medical threats. There's been MERS and SARS and H1N1 and Ebola. Some of them were pretty bad, maybe (I'm not a scientist or a doctor, so I said maybe) even worse than this thing will turn out to be. Time will tell. But holy cow, not a one of them was treated like this one to my memory.
On Sep 11, 2001, scumbag terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and an airplane that ultimately crashed in Pennsylvania. In the says, weeks, and months afterward, the people of the U.S.A. pulled together. We were united in solidarity with victims, their surviving relatives, the military, even the President. People dropped what they were doing to help sift through the rubble and in hopes of helping just one person to survive, or another to know their loved one's fate and reconcile with a grim reality. People left their job to join the military. It was incredible. The playing of the Star Spangled Banner and God Bless America at a ballgame would bring tears of grief and tears of pride. Where has all that gone?
Our politics today is completely and totally infected, not with coronavirus. Something else that has poisoned our dialogue and made it nearly impossible to find the common ground that we surely do share with one another, even if it's on the other side of the aisle. And while I think there are several things that have brought us to this place, from the Clinton impeachment, and through and during the Bush and Obama campaigns and presidencies, there is one thing that in my opinion is before all others in differentiating 2001 from 2020: social media. It's social media to be sure.
One social media there is first and often, some anonymity. The anonymity of Twitter makes it easy to say things one wouldn't say to another person face to face. Likewise, to some extent it dehumanizes everybody to some degree. The result is the people we disagree with are not completely human to us as we perceive them, and behind their mask of anonymity and our own anonymity, too, the discourse has grown harsher and less civil on a nearly continuous basis. And in deploying and marketing themselves on Twitter, for example, too many people feel a need to prove themselves to their fans and followers as being more snarky, more cutesy, more of an asshole, frankly, than they might otherwise be. This behavior is reinforced and encouraged by the comments, likes, and retweets of their fans and followers, who then try to match or exceed the wittiness, cleverness, and snarkiness of the one they follow in their own tweet or replies. Some people have really developed themselves into super assholes, where nothing is sacred or secret, nothing is taboo, and no insult can be given or received without some even worse insult proudly fired off as a last word. But there never is a last word. It's a continuum of assholierthanthoughness.
I see this stuff mostly on Twitter, which is the worst, I'd wager, but it comes through on Facebook, too. There's nothing I hate more than people I consider dear friends being insulted and snark-attacked by other friends in a really poor excuse for discourse. And the insulting is sometimes, oftentimes more insidious than just plain old snippy-snark. Several friends of mine have posted 'informative' articles they found to be expressive of their point of view. And while I assume as a dear friend they didn't intend the generalizations and insults of white men, or of Republicans, or of Trump voters and supporters like me, they did proudly post that Dan Rather or some other piece that explained how stupid we are, or how uninformed we are, how cult-like we are, how racsist, homophobic, xenophobic, islamaphobic, misogynistic or otherwise evil "they" are. Meanwhile, who is they? Sometimes they is me. Other times, it's you. Both sides do it. I've tried to maintain a respectful curiosity about what the people on the left side of the aisle want, what their vision of America is, and how they think that all fits together to work for us all and make the country better. Too often I don't see or get that. Instead I get a sense it's not win-win solutions they seek. It's win lose, where oftentimes they'd actually rather see 'us' lose more than 'they' themselves would like to win. It's a toxic, toxic, terrible place for our society to be in.
The right does it, too. I cringe when I hear 'lib-tard', or whatever. It's wrong. We have to stop it. I'm NOT against expressing political views. I do it all the time. But as soon as the insults of the day show themselves, I check out.
I blame it on social media. To a nearly equal extent, I blame mainstream news outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, New York Post, etc., and ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS, and most of all Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. They have found many of the snarkers, and given them a platform from which to expound on their hateful win lose theories.
Sports talk radio and political talk radio is overcome by snark. We hear it, we take it in and the discourse becomes a cesspool of snark that is not just unproductive, but rather counterproductive and destructive. I don't want to hear a radio personality bash a celebrity, an athlete (like some guy's irrational hatred of Tiger Woods or LeBron James, or Alex Rodriguez, of Donald Trump, or Mitch McConnell, or anyone else). I don't care for it and don't like it. Today's toxic environment is a petri dish in which that kind of infection thrives.
Back to MY social media. Until things improve I will continue to: delete my posts when they're devolving into a cesspool. I will delete your comments if you're insulting people, whether intentionally or accidentally. I will unfriend, unfollow, or outright block you if you persist. It's MY Facebook, and it's MY Twitter feed. This is MY blog, not yours. You are welcome to read it, even to leave a comment. I moderate all comments. If you have something to offer in the way of agreement or disagreement, it is welcome as long as it is thoughtful and respectful. Respectful of me, my friends and family, my country that I love, etc. But if you're just being cute and continuing a left versus right back and forth that never, ever ends as a part of your social media existence, you're probably a goner. If not, your shitty comment will be deleted, at a minimum. I've blocked literally thousands on Twitter. I even maintain two, one for politics, and another for sports and other interests. For me if I didn't the intersection and crossfire between those two worlds is intolerable.
So feel free to comment, whether you agree or if you disagree. Just be nice. Tell me what you think and why. And a pro tip: the niceness starts to wear off quickly when you start by telling me what you think that I think, and then you continue by analyzing what you think I think to determine why you think I think that, so that you can explain it to me how and why you think I'm wrong. A better way would be to ask me what I think and why I think it. And how you ask makes a difference, too. Questions prefaced by, "Do you have so little regard for _____ , that you think we should (or shouldn't) ____ ? That's not a question. It's an argument against or a statement about something in a poorly disguised to look like a question. End of rant.
Have a great day, friends! God bless.
