Dear Tell All: I’ve been on Twitter for about six years and fondly recall when my friends and I used it to post pictures of what we’d ordered at a restaurant. I still mostly use it that way, but my friends have turned their Twitter accounts into political bomb-launching platforms.
On an almost hourly basis, they’re sneering at conservative politicians and conservative pundits. They’re engaging in flame wars with conservative trolls. They attack, attack, attack — except when they’re spreading that hour’s trending progressive party line. Then it’s liking and retweeting and adding their redundant righteous voices to the lefty echo chamber.
I’m a progressive myself, but I find this incessant Twitter sniping to be self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing. Plus, what purpose does it serve? It keeps my friends in a constantly agitated state while changing precisely zero minds on the other side. Has a well-turned left-wing zinger ever convinced a right-winger that Trump is a hypocritical liar who deserves to be dragged out of office? To me, it only poisons everyday conversations while demonizing fellow citizens.
Conservatives are just as bad, of course, if not worse. I guess I’d like to think that my side — my friends — are more humane than that. I’d say something to them if I weren’t scared of being demonized myself.
Should I say something anyway?
Having the Guajillo Braised Chicken at Marigold Kitchen
Dear Having: I understand your dismay at the corrosiveness of social media discourse in these hyper-partisan times. It can get mighty ugly on one’s feed, especially if you click on a trending political topic. Sometimes it seems like people are sniping at each other for sniping’s sake, with no hint of a productive purpose.
But other times, Twitter does move the needle. You have to admit that, from the progressive point of view, it helped organize the Women’s March and pressured Fox News to fire Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes following sexual-harassment allegations. Your friends surely had a hand in those and other epic achievements. In other words, you’re not going to convince them that their righteous tweets are useless.
But you might have more luck convincing them to lighten up on Twitter every once in a while. Gently tell them you’re worried about the coarsening effect on their personalities. If they savagely attack you, you’ll know it’s time to look for new friends. But they’re more likely to join you at Marigold Kitchen for the guajillo braised chicken. Do me a favor and tweet a picture of it to @isthmus, will you?
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