This was great, well worth the price of admission. (I knew someday you’d convince me to start paying for my subscription!)
I’ve thought a lot the last few years about why so many people (though not all or even most) on the left seem to reserve more of their ire for liberals than for Trumpists, and I think you’ve captured one of the reasons why: that they fundamentally agree, as a descriptive matter, with Trump on what America is (though as you say, disagree vehemently with Trump about what moral valence to put on that description).
And come to think of it, it’s the same reason why people to my left have a hard time understanding why I can’t bring myself to hate Mitt Romney. At the core, Romney and I largely agree on what this country is: a lowercase-liberal democracy, with institutions that are worth defending and problems worth solving. Now, what Romney wants to do within the confines of that liberal democracy is very different than what I want to do; I would never vote for him (unless I somehow had to in order to prevent a Trumpist from winning). But I just can’t hate him the same way I hate Trump and the cronies who supported him.
Anyway, good food for thought, especially since I worry that the current uneasy truce between liberals and the left might start falling apart altogether soon given our common enemy of Trump is now (at least temporarily) vanquished.
photos of cheery French cavalry in plumed hats at the beginning of WWI are amazing when you think of those guys in chlorine gas masks festering in muddy trenches a few years later. I think 2006-2016 is also a time when technology moves too fast for human society to keep pace.
there seems to be a trend where roughly speaking the worse your mental & emotional health is, the more you post. (I think that this is the main direction of causality, too, not the other way.)
I think this is the fundamental problem of any Internet community. People who are currently lonely and isolated for whatever reason post at a much higher volume. (Personal experience!)
Among these are a some who have an unhealthy relationship with social media, may have actual mental health problems, really can't help but behave in sort of antisocial ways, and eventually their aggressive, histrionic style of interaction drives away the normal people.
This dynamic is obvious on Twitter, at a huge scale. It also tends to happen on Discord, forums, whatever. At least the scale is limited. I think this is the fate of all online communities over time unless there's some countervailing force (like strong real-world relationships) to stop it.
So I'm not optimistic that new smaller-scale social media like Discord will be that much better, but if Twitter became less important we might at least start to recover a less deranged public sphere.
Some recent polling suggests you may be right, but I'm not convinced. We came within a few thousand votes of watching Trump triumph in the EC, and in the Senate the Reps represent 40M fewer people than the Dems. That built in instability combined with how seriously aggrieved so many are by demographic, economic, and social change scares me. Until and unless the Reps repudiate Trump and his Big Lie about the election, I don't see how we can move forward with confidence that the American experiment will last much longer.
This was great, well worth the price of admission. (I knew someday you’d convince me to start paying for my subscription!)
I’ve thought a lot the last few years about why so many people (though not all or even most) on the left seem to reserve more of their ire for liberals than for Trumpists, and I think you’ve captured one of the reasons why: that they fundamentally agree, as a descriptive matter, with Trump on what America is (though as you say, disagree vehemently with Trump about what moral valence to put on that description).
And come to think of it, it’s the same reason why people to my left have a hard time understanding why I can’t bring myself to hate Mitt Romney. At the core, Romney and I largely agree on what this country is: a lowercase-liberal democracy, with institutions that are worth defending and problems worth solving. Now, what Romney wants to do within the confines of that liberal democracy is very different than what I want to do; I would never vote for him (unless I somehow had to in order to prevent a Trumpist from winning). But I just can’t hate him the same way I hate Trump and the cronies who supported him.
Anyway, good food for thought, especially since I worry that the current uneasy truce between liberals and the left might start falling apart altogether soon given our common enemy of Trump is now (at least temporarily) vanquished.
Excellent, natch. Especially like the "One Ring" comment.
As ex-military, my own Trump Sickness Unto Death is that a number of military were part of the Capitol thing. It hurts...
photos of cheery French cavalry in plumed hats at the beginning of WWI are amazing when you think of those guys in chlorine gas masks festering in muddy trenches a few years later. I think 2006-2016 is also a time when technology moves too fast for human society to keep pace.
there seems to be a trend where roughly speaking the worse your mental & emotional health is, the more you post. (I think that this is the main direction of causality, too, not the other way.)
I think this is the fundamental problem of any Internet community. People who are currently lonely and isolated for whatever reason post at a much higher volume. (Personal experience!)
Among these are a some who have an unhealthy relationship with social media, may have actual mental health problems, really can't help but behave in sort of antisocial ways, and eventually their aggressive, histrionic style of interaction drives away the normal people.
This dynamic is obvious on Twitter, at a huge scale. It also tends to happen on Discord, forums, whatever. At least the scale is limited. I think this is the fate of all online communities over time unless there's some countervailing force (like strong real-world relationships) to stop it.
So I'm not optimistic that new smaller-scale social media like Discord will be that much better, but if Twitter became less important we might at least start to recover a less deranged public sphere.
Some recent polling suggests you may be right, but I'm not convinced. We came within a few thousand votes of watching Trump triumph in the EC, and in the Senate the Reps represent 40M fewer people than the Dems. That built in instability combined with how seriously aggrieved so many are by demographic, economic, and social change scares me. Until and unless the Reps repudiate Trump and his Big Lie about the election, I don't see how we can move forward with confidence that the American experiment will last much longer.
Excellent analyses of what we just lived through, thanks.