Preaching to the Online Political Choir

The graphic above, courtesy of @goldengateblond, sums up the noise-to-conversion ratio when arguing politics on social media. The red area demonstrates accurately the end result of online political discussion — if you want to call what passes for most social media politics a discussion.

It’s really more of a latter-day Morton Downey Jr. Show in 140 characters.

I’m going to start off by raising my hand and pleading guilty to contributing to the chair-throwing melees that have become Twitter and Facebook as the vicious election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump take form.

I’ve engaged in my share of trolling of Clinton’s supporters… from the Bernie Sanders side during the primaries… to all Trump supporters for the past year. Trolling Trump supporters is child’s play, because they… like their leader, are so easy to bait you don’t even need a worm on the hook.

It’s very hard to stop trolling Trump supporters. I need to work on that.

Jillian Hurley, one of my favorite follows on Twitter, posted the tweet below which struck an uncomfortable nerve in me.

“Everybody has made a choice, I believe.”

I responded to the tweet a couple of times and then left Twitter for some hours of living real life. But it kept nagging at me.

“Everybody has made a choice.”

Hurley is right. When it comes to Clinton v. Trump there are few fence sitters. The minds on the left and the minds on the right aren’t open to accepting the other sides candidate, their political solutions, or each other.

The fringe far left who may jump to the Dr. Jill Stein camp and the increasingly agitated right who don’t know whether to move to Gary Johnson or down ballot the rest of the GOP ticket while staying away from Trump are even more fierce in online vitriolic behavior.

I’ve found those groups to be an explosive minefield for political discussion online. They bring no added value to conversations other than ranting variations of “both sides fucking suck” ad nauseum.

I agree, BTW. Both sides do suck. But in the pragmatic real world I live in there are stark differences that have long-term impact on most people’s lives.

That last sentence was another example of trolling and/or online snark.

I need to work on being better than that.

Preaching to the choir is easy. That’s why so many of us do it. Like rooting for the home team in sports, we all want a safe place to cheer, to scream, to finger-point, to show our true political colors. If we hang with the like-minded while opposing the enemy we don’t have to worry about being held accountable when someone asks “how can you possibly be stupid enough to vote for Clinton/Trump?” because we know others will join us in berating and beating down those who disagree with us.

That sounds like cowardice and bullying to me.

I’ve been guilty of it many times. I don’t mean to sound cavalier about admitting to that behavior, because it’s not a good showing of my character.

Trying to get others to see your political point-of-view is pretty much what passes for social media political discourse. I rarely see people asking for others to share their political views in an open, articulate, non-combative, non-judgmental way. The knives are sharpened and ready for battle instantly. Some blood is spilled, blocks and mutes and unfriending follows as the medics check on the wounded keyboard warriors.

And then we soldier on verbally beating the hell out of each other in the next skirmish resulting from the latest media-induced outrage.

For what? If no one’s views are changing, if choices have been made, as Hurley opined, then what’s the point? Why are we doing this to ourselves? Are our lives so unfulfilled, so devoid of other opportunity, that all we have for hours a day is social media driven manufactured outrage?

I get reading and discussing news stories as Hurley said in her tweet. I don’t advocate the American public becoming ostriches for the rest of this intensely divisive election. Ignorance to what happens on the campaign trail isn’t the answer. Blind obedience to everything coming from the candidate you support is wrong.

But preaching to the political choir is like eating a huge gourmet cupcake.

It might taste amazing and give you a huge rush… but the resulting crash will leave you craving more and that isn’t healthy for you.

Or me.

Please leave comments here or email me at jamesbarraford@gmail.com