If I ever write a 2400-word essay whining about how people on the Internet were mean to me, and I'm seriously considering posting it in public, I sincerely hope that I have good enough friends to talk me out of it.
That wasn't the point; the point was "people on the internet were mean to him" is a complete distraction from the actual topic at hand, which is attempting to save the United States from a fascist autocracy. But people are more interested in posting stupid memes for likes and giggles than actual engaging any of their brain cells in the business of having a worthwhile opinion on anything but the Kardashians' butts. See also the Orville and Black Mirror episodes I referenced above.
Hey, John Adams was a pompous twat ("obnoxious and disliked") but he was also absolutely right, and one of the Founding Fathers of our nation. When he had the sense to "sit down, John, for God's sake, sit down"!
One of the additional problems of social media is disliking the message and using it as an excuse to kill the messenger. And then beating that dead horse into a thin grey paste spread over a very wide area. And then taking the paste and throwing it at people who agree with the message.
"Bringing in more republicans, even the "non-maga defectors" and catering to them"
No one is supporting catering to them. All that we are asking is that if they are in favor of the reforms desperately needed to *restore democracy*, you not throw them off the bus until that job is *completed*. Because without the restoration, none of the latter matters, and it is possible that they will change their stances when the work of the restoration is done and they see what they have done.
Restoration will never be complete with those who benefit from the pre-restoration state of things, and that includes Republicans. If they want to help fight trump, they do not need to be "brought in" to the movement. If they do want to join the movement, they need to prove themselves first.
"If they do want to join the movement, they need to prove themselves first."
How, exactly? By kneeling in fealty to some left-wing set of virtue guidelines? How about we fight Trump first, and save the rest for one we get that bastard and everyone who supports and works with him up against the wall?
Interesting strawman you've built. No actually, I want to make sure that the people in the coalition actually agree on getting rid of trump, because even most democrats don't seem to be on board with that.
Do you mean with an Ad Hominem? After all, you didn't attack the argument, you attacked the account. Just because I do not use this white-supremacist aligned website (that's not me being hyperbolic, they had to apologize for pushing a nazi article and then defended their ties with Nazi groups https://www.niemanlab.org/reading/substack-sent-a-push-alert-promoting-a-nazi-blog/ ) means my argument is worthless? Please.
And here we are again, throwing out the baby with the bath water. If you want to make a site where only the most pure leftists who hug trees, eat only plants (and HDP, of course), have a net positive carbon impact (I do my best), and sing Kumbaya in great circles of joy can post, I'll happily join you and the dozen or so people who are also there. (Sarcasm, just so you don't take me out of context.)
Hey, AI bots and Russian troll farm apparently have more intelligence than 50% of voting Americans, based on recent elections! (Setting the lowest of low bars, lower even than Bill Barr himself.)
Bluesky is not an able platform to discuss ideas like your "Open Letter" in depth. The character limit being one issue among several.
I read your essay last night. Like one of the other respondents I have trust issues with the right. Been on the business end of their perfidy one too many times. I think that specifically "welcoming them into the fold" is a bad idea and that is not something that I'm willing to do but I am willing to welcome them to the fight. As long as they pick up a pitchfork and point/wield it in the right direction they are welcome to fight along side me but I'm keeping an eye on them lest those tines end up in my six o'clock at some point. And I certainly don't want them to take charge of anything. Ever.
I don't understand what you intended with the bsky brouhaha but I'm not sure that it reflected well on anyone, points to be proven or not. FWIW,
"I'm not sure that it reflected well on anyone..."
In general, "social media" and the Internet don't reflect well on anyone. Even me, in this discussion, and I'm trying really hard to be reasonable (when I'm not being sarcastic).
No one is supporting catering to them, or welcoming them into the fold. All that we are asking is that if they are in favor of the reforms desperately needed to *restore democracy*, you not throw them off the bus until that job is *completed*. Because without the restoration, none of the other stuff matters, and it is possible that they will change their stances when the work of the restoration is done and they see what they have done.
Thank you for this essay; it is an excellent lesson in exactly why I choose not to engage in "social media" in general - it is neither particularly "social", nor is it "media". (See also the Orville episode "Majority Rule" and the Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" for science fictional lessons on the society that "social media" produces.)
I agree with you that if we are going to move the boulder, we are going to need the assistance of Republicans who have come to their senses about what their party *should* stand for (and, in part, once did stand for!) rather than what it currently stands for. There is no shame in being conservative, or of holding conservative values:
Unfortunately, reading this, Mike Johnson and the Republican Party stand for precisely none of these things. Not one. Not even close. They stand for power, money, and a boot stomping on a human face forever.
I happen to agree with your argument that we need to build imperfect coalitions to rebuild our society. However, I'm not sure if doing that online in spaces where we don't have a way to verify the other person is an American and not acting from outside the system is the best way to go. Interested to hear your opinion on this.
I say this as a progressive who took some time to get to this opinion myself, but understand we are all being urgently asked to challenge ourselves.
The issue is that he blatantly attacked several queer folks and ignored any real engagement with his arguments. He only cares about attention, not progress.
I beg to differ. The issue is not that somehow Mike said something that tripped your trigger. The issue is we really must be serious about working together to stop this authoritarian regime. We live in serious, existential times and we the people have a serious responsibility to our nation, to the children and to the future.
Generally speaking if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
We have work to do. All of us. Best we get to it soon.
"The issue is that he blatantly attacked several queer folks"
Attacked them with homophobic statements, or attacked them for being "pompous twats" regardless of their sexual orientation? If he did attack queer folks on the basis of their gender preference, I'd like some proof in the form of Bluesky links, because as someone with LBGTQIA+ children, I'd be very upset by this.
"He only cares about attention, not progress."
And you show you care so much about progress by engaging in an ad hominem attack. He's got more caring about progress in his little finger than you have in your obviously huge, inflated ego.
Incorrect, Ad Hom requires attacking the character in place of the argument, but making a statement on it's own does not qualify as Ad Hom. Mike Brock isn't wrong *because* he wants attention instead of progress, he is wrong on his own merit, and in addition to being wrong he also seems to care about attention rather than progress, based on his own attitude.
Really? Can you provide a link? Or are you taking an argument out of context to make Mike Brock look bad, not that anyone ever would think of doing that, of course, in our world where truth rings over all...
Oh, come on, that's a clear case of taking something out of context to make Mike look bad. If someone wants to describe themselves as a "genderless rodent" on BlueSky, they really ought to be ready for someone to call them on it.
I am so very tired of people attaching labels to themselves and then bitching when they are asked to account for those labels. I mean, really, this is weak.
"spaces where we don't have a way to verify the other person is an American and not acting from outside the system"
Yeah, we should have done this during the American Revolution as well; getting help from the French was the biggest mistake we made. And only 48 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were born in America! Guys like Robert Morris and John Witherspoon had no business sticking their noses where they didn't belong.
Most of these hyperbolic exchanges are occurring in an utterly abstract context. What happens when you lure a few Rs over to the so-called resistance? This whole discussion often contains nothing more than a patina of realism with regard to concretely fighting fascism or any other right wing horror being visited upon us. Plenty of other discussions on Substack do venture into these waters. Mike, to his credit, has discussed concrete political strategies but this latest run of diatribe is sadly lacking in empirically based political currency.
It really is tragic how nearly an entire generation of people have outsourced critical thinking skills only for the ability to be obnoxious and rude to people they will never truly know/understand, without repercussions, thus incapable of truly learning how to think critically about anything. I appreciate your work Mike…Hold Fast 🇺🇸
If we are going to welcome maga into the fold, maga needs to understand we need them to help us take down the regime and that we do not under any circumstances support their maga beliefs and politics. That must be the first step forward. This is not a love fest. This is a coalition with one aim. Destroy the Trump regime until it is broken into a billion pieces. Stay focused! There are many millions of never Trumper republicans that are on our side, but not for one minute do I support their Bush Republican politics if there even is such a thing anymore. But I respect them and admire them for standing up and walking away from Trump. Taking a stand. One day they will be back and we will fight over policies. But today we work together to tear it all down. The corruption, the lies, the murders, the misogyny, the racism, the homophobia, the deportations, the defiance of the law and constitution, the wars.. we seriously must work together to get this job done successfully-that is how I see it.
There is a reason I’ve labeled all my social media apps ‘toilets’. You went looking for that fight and seem to admit it. Not sure what the end game was if you knew it was going to fail. I agree with someone above. I’ll roll up my sleeves and do the heavy lifting with anyone but not on social media. In my community- face to face. I want to see the tan line where the maga hat used to be as we work together. But I’m not hooking up with some probable online troll.
From the distant Antipodes, I read your original challenge, as I challenge myself with everything you write because I understand it comes directly from "the path with heart".
I wondered if I could accept unpunished any once treacherous Republican who switched 'causes', since in my angriest moments I see the only hope for America's salvation as a thousand guillotinings and tens of thousands of LONG emprisonments.
Yet, I wonder equally at the grace and wisdom of the Reconciliation of the many brave African Mandelas and Tutus.
Which also appears to have left that country in the hands of an ANC seemingly as mindlessly intransigent as your radical leftwing 'persecutors'😅.
I can see how, in the first place, such extremism encouraged an even worse rise of the fascism already latent and simmering within the strains of your own and most uneven capitalist democracies ( including mine).
But then, on the other hand, what else has history provided but the TERROR of such blind radicalism to cauterise the original oppression?
So that, eventually, something purified may arise. May...eventually.
Of course, you are correct in your analysis of the dangerously reflexive nastiness and nihilism of such I'll considered responses. Or, perhaps worse ...'considered'.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the stock in trade learned social media reflex, a form of accepted 'venting' which eschews real considered application to your promoted idea behind the sort of social discussions we simply have to have ... All the time...if we are to continue to honour the ideals of Enlightened thinking which many of us still believe is at least the true veneer of the civilised mind.
Otherwise, Bannon's deluge of shit really does become the modern NUCLEAR OPTION.
From the distant Antipodes, I read your original challenge, as I challenge myself with everything you write because I understand it comes directly from "the path with heart".
I wondered if I could accept unpunished any once treacherous Republican who switched 'causes', since in my angriest moments I see the only hope for America's salvation as a thousand guillotinings and tens of thousands of LONG emprisonments.
Yet, I wonder equally at the grace and wisdom of the Reconciliation of the many brave African Mandelas and Tutus.
Which also appears to have left that country in the hands of an ANC seemingly as mindlessly intransigent as your radical leftwing 'persecutors'😅.
I can see how, in the first place, such extremism encouraged an even worse rise of the fascism already latent and simmering within the strains of your own and most uneven capitalist democracies ( including mine).
But then, on the other hand, what else has history provided but the TERROR of such blind radicalism to cauterise the original oppression?
So that, eventually, something purified may arise. May...eventually.
Of course, you are correct in your analysis of the dangerously reflexive nastiness and nihilism of such I'll considered responses. Or, perhaps worse ...'considered'.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the stock in trade learned social media reflex, a form of accepted 'venting' which eschews real considered application to your promoted idea behind the sort of social discussions we simply have to have ... All the time...if we are to continue to honour the ideals of Enlightened thinking which many of us still believe is at least the true veneer of the civilised mind.
Otherwise, Bannon's deluge of shit really does become the modern NUCLEAR OPTION.
As I said on bsky: If the goal is "let's form a broad coalition to oppose Trump, including temporarily allying with people with different values that we normally hate", ok, that's a good idea maybe. But your post seems to be having the opposite effect, all I see here is more divisiveness.
You want to welcome Republicans to the fold, OK, that's good. But getting in bitter fights with leftists is not going help. Calling them "morons" and "dregs" is not going to help – even if they deserve it.
One reason the Nazis came to power is that the different factions who opposed them hated each other more than they did fascism. This was, to put it mildly, a mistake.
"One reason the Nazis came to power is that the different factions who opposed them hated each other more than they did fascism."
Yes, and this is exactly what Trump and his enablers have capitalized on. Too many people were terrified of a mixed-background woman President because, secretly, a majority of *voting* Americans are misogynistic racists and misogyny and racism get out the vote.
"getting in bitter fights with leftists is not going help"
But allowing leftists and liberals to continue to play their stupid "virtue" games that will lead to Trump and the Republicans solidifying their power base in the 2026 non-election also doesn't help, and that was precisely the point of Mike's essay. Democrats have been playing the same virtue game for years now, and all it has done is lead to loss after loss after loss.
Having read some of what was posted there, what it looks like to me is that you deliberately kicked a hornet's nest and then acted surprised that the hornets were angry.
You do admit as much in this breakdown of the event, but the nature of short-form social media itself leads to the hornets proceeding to try to sting you than actually engaging with the substance of your initial point. If you'd just ignored the trolls, Chandler Patey might have been more willing to continue to engage with you on the substance.
Ultimately this is just downstream of McLuhan's observations that the medium is the message and the massage.
Yes, Daniel. I very deliberately kicked a "hornets nest" of very angry hornets. I knew that's what I was doing. I anticipated the response. And yet, I proceeded anyways. Saw mostly what I expected to see. And then I wrote this. I'm quite proud of it, really.
What this reads to me as you saying is that you weren't actually looking for engagement on the substance of your point; you were looking to rile up the metaphorical hornets so that you could write this piece. By engaging with those who write things such as what lauren wrote, you come across as having attempted to accelerate the rhetorical engagement away from what you termed "Phase One" toward the later phases, and then here complained that the rhetoric had moved past Phase One.
I am not saying this in defence of most of those who replied to you, or who engaged with the screenshot of your exchange with lauren without ever seeing what you actually wrote. That activity is why I brought up McLuhan. I am observing that it weakens your case that there was little interest in substantive engagement when through your own choices in what to reply to you appeared to prefer engaging with nonsubstantive responses.
I would have found this piece more informative about the nature of the ecosystem on Bluesky had you limited your engagement only to those few (and regrettably there were few) who engaged substantively in the first place.
Or, to put this another way, you set out to observe epistemic collapse in the left-wing virtuosphere, which is a worthy goal, but in your choices of who to engage with actively contributed to the epistemic collapse within the microcosm you observed. It seems odd at best to complain about epistemic collapse while acting in a way that pushed said collapse.
EDIT: Your conclusion that there is epistemic collapse in the left-wing virtuosphere is not well supported by a sequence of events in which you appear to have actively participated in creating epistemic collapse within the microcosm of that space which you observed. That does not mean that your conclusion is incorrect, just that it is not substantiated by these events.
What's strange is that I had also done my write up in an attempt for good faith conversation, and yet Mike Ignored my thread in order to keep lashing out. It was very telling of what he really wanted to accomplish.
I'm considering doing a longer write up without the ending post. The TL;DR is "Unvetted members of the republican party joining the democrats only for the sake of democracy will lead to a decline in human rights as those republicans will demand votes on repealing the rights of others in the name of democracy and bipartisanship, and will further the disillusionment of the existing democratic voting base who abhor the ongoing actions of republicans, and that's only the republicans who vote dem when more often than not when they don't agree with current GOP membership, they just don't vote."
"the nature of short-form social media itself leads to the hornets proceeding to try to sting you than actually engaging with the substance of your initial point."
And that's exactly the problem Mike is pointing out, exactly why I don't engage with "social media", and exact what the Orville and Black Mirror episodes I listed above were trying to warn us about.
I wish you all the best. I simply find that it accomplishes little other than to raise my blood pressure and increase my depression; I just have no tolerance for dealing with most people.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."
Sorry I can't share your patience. I grew up in the 70's and early 80's, with high hopes from watching Star Trek, Cosmos, the Space Shuttle, the Voyager missions, 2001, - only to have them all dashed by power- and money-hungry morons getting in charge of our government and technology and ensuring that I can't leave my kids a better world than I had. It infuriates me.
If I ever write a 2400-word essay whining about how people on the Internet were mean to me, and I'm seriously considering posting it in public, I sincerely hope that I have good enough friends to talk me out of it.
I'm sorry to hear that you don't.
That wasn't the point; the point was "people on the internet were mean to him" is a complete distraction from the actual topic at hand, which is attempting to save the United States from a fascist autocracy. But people are more interested in posting stupid memes for likes and giggles than actual engaging any of their brain cells in the business of having a worthwhile opinion on anything but the Kardashians' butts. See also the Orville and Black Mirror episodes I referenced above.
You seem nice.
You got mocked for being a pompous twat and couldn't handle it.
Writes an account with zero followers or posts.
Exactly
There’s no need for this kind of cruelty and go back to Twitter where people like that shit
Hey, John Adams was a pompous twat ("obnoxious and disliked") but he was also absolutely right, and one of the Founding Fathers of our nation. When he had the sense to "sit down, John, for God's sake, sit down"!
One of the additional problems of social media is disliking the message and using it as an excuse to kill the messenger. And then beating that dead horse into a thin grey paste spread over a very wide area. And then taking the paste and throwing it at people who agree with the message.
"Nobody engaged with the actual argument."
This is a lie. A helpful breakdown of the issue with your approach was written, you simply chose to ignore it.
Writes another account with zero followers or posts.
And yet, it is true. If you cannot counter what I am saying, then don't attempt to at all.
http://bit.ly/3Q3JP7m
"Bringing in more republicans, even the "non-maga defectors" and catering to them"
No one is supporting catering to them. All that we are asking is that if they are in favor of the reforms desperately needed to *restore democracy*, you not throw them off the bus until that job is *completed*. Because without the restoration, none of the latter matters, and it is possible that they will change their stances when the work of the restoration is done and they see what they have done.
Restoration will never be complete with those who benefit from the pre-restoration state of things, and that includes Republicans. If they want to help fight trump, they do not need to be "brought in" to the movement. If they do want to join the movement, they need to prove themselves first.
"If they do want to join the movement, they need to prove themselves first."
How, exactly? By kneeling in fealty to some left-wing set of virtue guidelines? How about we fight Trump first, and save the rest for one we get that bastard and everyone who supports and works with him up against the wall?
Interesting strawman you've built. No actually, I want to make sure that the people in the coalition actually agree on getting rid of trump, because even most democrats don't seem to be on board with that.
I don’t need to counter shit. I can substantiate my claim by looking at your profile.
Do you mean with an Ad Hominem? After all, you didn't attack the argument, you attacked the account. Just because I do not use this white-supremacist aligned website (that's not me being hyperbolic, they had to apologize for pushing a nazi article and then defended their ties with Nazi groups https://www.niemanlab.org/reading/substack-sent-a-push-alert-promoting-a-nazi-blog/ ) means my argument is worthless? Please.
And here we are again, throwing out the baby with the bath water. If you want to make a site where only the most pure leftists who hug trees, eat only plants (and HDP, of course), have a net positive carbon impact (I do my best), and sing Kumbaya in great circles of joy can post, I'll happily join you and the dozen or so people who are also there. (Sarcasm, just so you don't take me out of context.)
And here *you* go again, with your Strawman.
Do you think these are just AI bots or Russian troll farms?
And yet another person accusing a queer person of not being real, how predictable.
That’s a lame troll you need to get a little more sophisticated ha
Hey, AI bots and Russian troll farm apparently have more intelligence than 50% of voting Americans, based on recent elections! (Setting the lowest of low bars, lower even than Bill Barr himself.)
Notice the suspicious link they posted, yet no links from Bluesky thread mentioned to substantiate the claim they make.
Bluesky is not an able platform to discuss ideas like your "Open Letter" in depth. The character limit being one issue among several.
I read your essay last night. Like one of the other respondents I have trust issues with the right. Been on the business end of their perfidy one too many times. I think that specifically "welcoming them into the fold" is a bad idea and that is not something that I'm willing to do but I am willing to welcome them to the fight. As long as they pick up a pitchfork and point/wield it in the right direction they are welcome to fight along side me but I'm keeping an eye on them lest those tines end up in my six o'clock at some point. And I certainly don't want them to take charge of anything. Ever.
I don't understand what you intended with the bsky brouhaha but I'm not sure that it reflected well on anyone, points to be proven or not. FWIW,
Ah, this I agree with. Thank you for this.
"I'm not sure that it reflected well on anyone..."
In general, "social media" and the Internet don't reflect well on anyone. Even me, in this discussion, and I'm trying really hard to be reasonable (when I'm not being sarcastic).
No one is supporting catering to them, or welcoming them into the fold. All that we are asking is that if they are in favor of the reforms desperately needed to *restore democracy*, you not throw them off the bus until that job is *completed*. Because without the restoration, none of the other stuff matters, and it is possible that they will change their stances when the work of the restoration is done and they see what they have done.
Thank you for this essay; it is an excellent lesson in exactly why I choose not to engage in "social media" in general - it is neither particularly "social", nor is it "media". (See also the Orville episode "Majority Rule" and the Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" for science fictional lessons on the society that "social media" produces.)
I agree with you that if we are going to move the boulder, we are going to need the assistance of Republicans who have come to their senses about what their party *should* stand for (and, in part, once did stand for!) rather than what it currently stands for. There is no shame in being conservative, or of holding conservative values:
https://mikejohnson.house.gov/7-core-principles-of-conservatism/
Unfortunately, reading this, Mike Johnson and the Republican Party stand for precisely none of these things. Not one. Not even close. They stand for power, money, and a boot stomping on a human face forever.
I happen to agree with your argument that we need to build imperfect coalitions to rebuild our society. However, I'm not sure if doing that online in spaces where we don't have a way to verify the other person is an American and not acting from outside the system is the best way to go. Interested to hear your opinion on this.
I say this as a progressive who took some time to get to this opinion myself, but understand we are all being urgently asked to challenge ourselves.
The issue is that he blatantly attacked several queer folks and ignored any real engagement with his arguments. He only cares about attention, not progress.
I beg to differ. The issue is not that somehow Mike said something that tripped your trigger. The issue is we really must be serious about working together to stop this authoritarian regime. We live in serious, existential times and we the people have a serious responsibility to our nation, to the children and to the future.
Generally speaking if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
We have work to do. All of us. Best we get to it soon.
"The issue is that he blatantly attacked several queer folks"
Attacked them with homophobic statements, or attacked them for being "pompous twats" regardless of their sexual orientation? If he did attack queer folks on the basis of their gender preference, I'd like some proof in the form of Bluesky links, because as someone with LBGTQIA+ children, I'd be very upset by this.
"He only cares about attention, not progress."
And you show you care so much about progress by engaging in an ad hominem attack. He's got more caring about progress in his little finger than you have in your obviously huge, inflated ego.
I appreciate the precision of your questioning, Mr. Eychaner. I most certainly did not engage in any vulgar bigotries. Of that I'm sure.
I did not engage in Ad Hominem, I described a behavior. Learn what Ad Hom is. Secondly, he told a queer person that they "Aren't even a person"
"He only cares about attention, not progress."
Ad Hominem: Attacking a person's character or motivations rather than a position or argument. Seems to fit pretty well.
Incorrect, Ad Hom requires attacking the character in place of the argument, but making a statement on it's own does not qualify as Ad Hom. Mike Brock isn't wrong *because* he wants attention instead of progress, he is wrong on his own merit, and in addition to being wrong he also seems to care about attention rather than progress, based on his own attitude.
Oh, I apologize, you wanted to argue against the message and kill the messenger. Well, that's ok then.
Really? Can you provide a link? Or are you taking an argument out of context to make Mike Brock look bad, not that anyone ever would think of doing that, of course, in our world where truth rings over all...
Mike?
nope, here it is. "You're not even a person"
https://bsky.app/profile/brockm.bsky.social/post/3mhyiwzaa322b
Oh, come on, that's a clear case of taking something out of context to make Mike look bad. If someone wants to describe themselves as a "genderless rodent" on BlueSky, they really ought to be ready for someone to call them on it.
I am so very tired of people attaching labels to themselves and then bitching when they are asked to account for those labels. I mean, really, this is weak.
"spaces where we don't have a way to verify the other person is an American and not acting from outside the system"
Yeah, we should have done this during the American Revolution as well; getting help from the French was the biggest mistake we made. And only 48 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were born in America! Guys like Robert Morris and John Witherspoon had no business sticking their noses where they didn't belong.
Most of these hyperbolic exchanges are occurring in an utterly abstract context. What happens when you lure a few Rs over to the so-called resistance? This whole discussion often contains nothing more than a patina of realism with regard to concretely fighting fascism or any other right wing horror being visited upon us. Plenty of other discussions on Substack do venture into these waters. Mike, to his credit, has discussed concrete political strategies but this latest run of diatribe is sadly lacking in empirically based political currency.
It really is tragic how nearly an entire generation of people have outsourced critical thinking skills only for the ability to be obnoxious and rude to people they will never truly know/understand, without repercussions, thus incapable of truly learning how to think critically about anything. I appreciate your work Mike…Hold Fast 🇺🇸
If we are going to welcome maga into the fold, maga needs to understand we need them to help us take down the regime and that we do not under any circumstances support their maga beliefs and politics. That must be the first step forward. This is not a love fest. This is a coalition with one aim. Destroy the Trump regime until it is broken into a billion pieces. Stay focused! There are many millions of never Trumper republicans that are on our side, but not for one minute do I support their Bush Republican politics if there even is such a thing anymore. But I respect them and admire them for standing up and walking away from Trump. Taking a stand. One day they will be back and we will fight over policies. But today we work together to tear it all down. The corruption, the lies, the murders, the misogyny, the racism, the homophobia, the deportations, the defiance of the law and constitution, the wars.. we seriously must work together to get this job done successfully-that is how I see it.
There is a reason I’ve labeled all my social media apps ‘toilets’. You went looking for that fight and seem to admit it. Not sure what the end game was if you knew it was going to fail. I agree with someone above. I’ll roll up my sleeves and do the heavy lifting with anyone but not on social media. In my community- face to face. I want to see the tan line where the maga hat used to be as we work together. But I’m not hooking up with some probable online troll.
One of your scariest posts yet, Mike.
With a certain hopelessness I hope that the argumentative ones are just busy?
More urgently, what machine do we need to build / buy / repair / repurpose together hands on the boulder and pushing?
From the distant Antipodes, I read your original challenge, as I challenge myself with everything you write because I understand it comes directly from "the path with heart".
I wondered if I could accept unpunished any once treacherous Republican who switched 'causes', since in my angriest moments I see the only hope for America's salvation as a thousand guillotinings and tens of thousands of LONG emprisonments.
Yet, I wonder equally at the grace and wisdom of the Reconciliation of the many brave African Mandelas and Tutus.
Which also appears to have left that country in the hands of an ANC seemingly as mindlessly intransigent as your radical leftwing 'persecutors'😅.
I can see how, in the first place, such extremism encouraged an even worse rise of the fascism already latent and simmering within the strains of your own and most uneven capitalist democracies ( including mine).
But then, on the other hand, what else has history provided but the TERROR of such blind radicalism to cauterise the original oppression?
So that, eventually, something purified may arise. May...eventually.
Of course, you are correct in your analysis of the dangerously reflexive nastiness and nihilism of such I'll considered responses. Or, perhaps worse ...'considered'.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the stock in trade learned social media reflex, a form of accepted 'venting' which eschews real considered application to your promoted idea behind the sort of social discussions we simply have to have ... All the time...if we are to continue to honour the ideals of Enlightened thinking which many of us still believe is at least the true veneer of the civilised mind.
Otherwise, Bannon's deluge of shit really does become the modern NUCLEAR OPTION.
From the distant Antipodes, I read your original challenge, as I challenge myself with everything you write because I understand it comes directly from "the path with heart".
I wondered if I could accept unpunished any once treacherous Republican who switched 'causes', since in my angriest moments I see the only hope for America's salvation as a thousand guillotinings and tens of thousands of LONG emprisonments.
Yet, I wonder equally at the grace and wisdom of the Reconciliation of the many brave African Mandelas and Tutus.
Which also appears to have left that country in the hands of an ANC seemingly as mindlessly intransigent as your radical leftwing 'persecutors'😅.
I can see how, in the first place, such extremism encouraged an even worse rise of the fascism already latent and simmering within the strains of your own and most uneven capitalist democracies ( including mine).
But then, on the other hand, what else has history provided but the TERROR of such blind radicalism to cauterise the original oppression?
So that, eventually, something purified may arise. May...eventually.
Of course, you are correct in your analysis of the dangerously reflexive nastiness and nihilism of such I'll considered responses. Or, perhaps worse ...'considered'.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the stock in trade learned social media reflex, a form of accepted 'venting' which eschews real considered application to your promoted idea behind the sort of social discussions we simply have to have ... All the time...if we are to continue to honour the ideals of Enlightened thinking which many of us still believe is at least the true veneer of the civilised mind.
Otherwise, Bannon's deluge of shit really does become the modern NUCLEAR OPTION.
Brilliant, Mike.
As I said on bsky: If the goal is "let's form a broad coalition to oppose Trump, including temporarily allying with people with different values that we normally hate", ok, that's a good idea maybe. But your post seems to be having the opposite effect, all I see here is more divisiveness.
You want to welcome Republicans to the fold, OK, that's good. But getting in bitter fights with leftists is not going help. Calling them "morons" and "dregs" is not going to help – even if they deserve it.
One reason the Nazis came to power is that the different factions who opposed them hated each other more than they did fascism. This was, to put it mildly, a mistake.
"One reason the Nazis came to power is that the different factions who opposed them hated each other more than they did fascism."
Yes, and this is exactly what Trump and his enablers have capitalized on. Too many people were terrified of a mixed-background woman President because, secretly, a majority of *voting* Americans are misogynistic racists and misogyny and racism get out the vote.
"getting in bitter fights with leftists is not going help"
But allowing leftists and liberals to continue to play their stupid "virtue" games that will lead to Trump and the Republicans solidifying their power base in the 2026 non-election also doesn't help, and that was precisely the point of Mike's essay. Democrats have been playing the same virtue game for years now, and all it has done is lead to loss after loss after loss.
Having read some of what was posted there, what it looks like to me is that you deliberately kicked a hornet's nest and then acted surprised that the hornets were angry.
You do admit as much in this breakdown of the event, but the nature of short-form social media itself leads to the hornets proceeding to try to sting you than actually engaging with the substance of your initial point. If you'd just ignored the trolls, Chandler Patey might have been more willing to continue to engage with you on the substance.
Ultimately this is just downstream of McLuhan's observations that the medium is the message and the massage.
Yes, Daniel. I very deliberately kicked a "hornets nest" of very angry hornets. I knew that's what I was doing. I anticipated the response. And yet, I proceeded anyways. Saw mostly what I expected to see. And then I wrote this. I'm quite proud of it, really.
What this reads to me as you saying is that you weren't actually looking for engagement on the substance of your point; you were looking to rile up the metaphorical hornets so that you could write this piece. By engaging with those who write things such as what lauren wrote, you come across as having attempted to accelerate the rhetorical engagement away from what you termed "Phase One" toward the later phases, and then here complained that the rhetoric had moved past Phase One.
I am not saying this in defence of most of those who replied to you, or who engaged with the screenshot of your exchange with lauren without ever seeing what you actually wrote. That activity is why I brought up McLuhan. I am observing that it weakens your case that there was little interest in substantive engagement when through your own choices in what to reply to you appeared to prefer engaging with nonsubstantive responses.
I would have found this piece more informative about the nature of the ecosystem on Bluesky had you limited your engagement only to those few (and regrettably there were few) who engaged substantively in the first place.
Or, to put this another way, you set out to observe epistemic collapse in the left-wing virtuosphere, which is a worthy goal, but in your choices of who to engage with actively contributed to the epistemic collapse within the microcosm you observed. It seems odd at best to complain about epistemic collapse while acting in a way that pushed said collapse.
EDIT: Your conclusion that there is epistemic collapse in the left-wing virtuosphere is not well supported by a sequence of events in which you appear to have actively participated in creating epistemic collapse within the microcosm of that space which you observed. That does not mean that your conclusion is incorrect, just that it is not substantiated by these events.
What's strange is that I had also done my write up in an attempt for good faith conversation, and yet Mike Ignored my thread in order to keep lashing out. It was very telling of what he really wanted to accomplish.
I looked for what you wrote, but couldn't find it; I would be interested in reading what you had to say in reply there.
This is a shortened link to the thread: http://bit.ly/3Q3JP7m
I'm considering doing a longer write up without the ending post. The TL;DR is "Unvetted members of the republican party joining the democrats only for the sake of democracy will lead to a decline in human rights as those republicans will demand votes on repealing the rights of others in the name of democracy and bipartisanship, and will further the disillusionment of the existing democratic voting base who abhor the ongoing actions of republicans, and that's only the republicans who vote dem when more often than not when they don't agree with current GOP membership, they just don't vote."
Ah, I had seen that thread, I just didn't realize that it was yours.
"the nature of short-form social media itself leads to the hornets proceeding to try to sting you than actually engaging with the substance of your initial point."
And that's exactly the problem Mike is pointing out, exactly why I don't engage with "social media", and exact what the Orville and Black Mirror episodes I listed above were trying to warn us about.
Well, I will keep posting there. Someone must enter the agora, Mr. Eychaner.
I wish you all the best. I simply find that it accomplishes little other than to raise my blood pressure and increase my depression; I just have no tolerance for dealing with most people.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."
I am patient. People should know this about me.
Sorry I can't share your patience. I grew up in the 70's and early 80's, with high hopes from watching Star Trek, Cosmos, the Space Shuttle, the Voyager missions, 2001, - only to have them all dashed by power- and money-hungry morons getting in charge of our government and technology and ensuring that I can't leave my kids a better world than I had. It infuriates me.