@RyanLCooper: "Facebook, in short, is destroying America"

The Week: "The platform has become a gigantic factory of extremist conspiracy theories and genocidal hatred — part of a general trend in which right-wing publications and political campaigns have come to dominate the site — all while bleeding traditional journalism to death."

With a brief exception at the start of the pandemic, I've been off Facebook for a year-and-a-half. Long story short: It bummed me out. But it was also literally addictive -- I found myself checking the service in any free moment. I had to go cold turkey, and honestly, as bad as the world seems, it feels better without Facebook in my life.

The funny thing is, Facebook might be even more integrated into our lives right now, when social distancing is the norm. I remember well how much I depended on the service for any connection with the world when I was undergoing my surgeries in 2011. People all over the planet are experiencing similar isolation right now. And it's worrisome to think that isolation is making them vulnerable to disinformation.

"Republicans started and recessed in less than 30 seconds"

The contempt these guys must have for their constituents:

In a special session called by Gov. Tony Evers to pass a package of bills on policing policies after a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake, who is Black, seven times in the back, Republicans started and recessed in less than 30 seconds -- satisfying requirements of the law that they meet.

I wrote Monday at The Week: "You can't demand peaceful protests and dismiss them at the same time." That remains the case. Republicans couldn't be bothered to pretend they care about issues of concern to Wisconsin's Black community. It's kind of breathtaking.

Andrew Sullivan smears Ben Smith: "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

Ben Smith's profile of Andrew Sullivan was about as respectful -- even loving -- as you can get while still rejecting Sullivan's long-and-ongoing history of just asking questions about whether some groups of people are genetically inferior or superior to each other.

Sullivan opens his response thusly:

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! But the press is mercifully free and Ben Smith can write what he wants. To be fair to Ben, he’s a man with ambitions at the New York Times. After the woke coup there earlier this summer, he had no choice but to call yours truly a racist if he seeks a future at that paper. He knows what happened to James Bennet for crossing the critical race activists now in control of what was once the paper of record. And he reported a lot about my career that the far left wants to erase entirely from the record, for which I am grateful.

In other words: Sullivan refuses to consider the possibility that Smith really believes Sullivan is wrong about this stuff. Even though, as he notes later in the column, lots and lots of people think Sullivan is wrong about this stuff. No, Ben Smith is a careerist with ignoble motives.

Sullivan doesn't provide any evidence behind his assertion, instead puffing his chest about defending free discourse. "I believe that’s what journalists should do: air a debate as responsibly as possible." Fair enough. But if you're going to be a journalist, you can't just say stuff -- you have to root what you say in provable facts, and then show your work. Smith tried to treat Sullivan with respect, even though he disagrees with Sullivan. Sullivan did not reciprocate. 

Commenter: "Steven Miller is a racist and anti-immigrant first. He learned how to argue this position second."

 Good response to my "debate kids" post. 

Would you still love America if America didn't love you back?

A good question by Peter Weber. I had a conservative friend who disliked the poet Langston Hughes -- who did some of his growing up in the town where I live -- because he wasn't very patriotic. Her attitude stunned me as a failure of empathy and moral imagination. Black people have been patriotic throughout America's history, even if America hasn't always reciprocated the love. But why on earth would you expect a Black man who was living in Jim Crow America to be patriotic?

Here's an excerpt from a story I wrote in 2003, about Hughes' testimony before Congress during the McCarthy era:

In Lawrence, Hughes said, he attended a “nickelodeon” movie theater every afternoon.

One day, Hughes said, “the woman pushed my nickel back and pointed to a sign beside the box office, and the sign said something, in effect, ‘Colored not admitted.’

“My playmates who were white and lived next door to me could go to that motion picture and I could not,” he told the senators. “I could never see a film in Lawrence again, and I lived there until I was 12 years old.”

Not for nothing, one of the chief interrogators of Hughes that day was Roy Cohn -- Donald Trump's future consigliere.  

For so much of our history, Black Americans were treated as property. Then they were treated as second-class citizens, if that. Even now, the way Black people are policed, and the way they suffer disproportionately from society's ills, suggests America hasn't fully embraced them. Expecting people to love when they haven't been loved isn't laudable. It's abusive.

President Trump wants to know: Are you ready for some football?

 

Millions of Americans face potential eviction. Businesses are failing. The COVID-19 death rate is now north of 180,000 souls. Racial unrest is percolating across the land. And this is President Trump's priority:

Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren had a telephone call with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, after a White House representative reached out about having discussions concerning how the conference can return to playing college football as soon as possible.

"I think it was very productive about getting [the] Big Ten playing again and immediately," Trump said. "Let's see what happens. He's a great guy. It's a great conference, tremendous teams. We're pushing very hard. ... I think they want to play, and the fans want to see it, and the players have a lot at stake, including possibly playing in the NFL. You have a lot of great players in that conference.

How very small of him. How very bread and circuses of him.

Starting over, again

A decade ago, fed up with my cratering life and career, I deleted my Twitter account, scrubbed my blog's archives and started over again. Today, I'm doing something similar.

I spend too much time on Twitter, reacting to Twitter, and regretting my instant takes on Twitter. So I'm letting my primary account go inactive later this week -- we'll see if that lasts, honestly, I've tried this before -- and starting a new account that will just be a feed from this blog. I'm not going to follow anybody there.

I am trying to slow my roll.

Twitter is bad for you. It is bad for democracy. I've felt this for awhile, yet I've stuck. Because I want to be a part of the conversation. But that's my ego talking, frankly. If I can't give up a little bit of trying to have an audience in order to do my incremental bit to back away from the trends that are consuming us ... well, that kind of makes me selfish, doesn't it?

Even now, I'm not entirely willing to forego the chance to be heard, which is why the new Twitter account. I am not an angel. And I have to figure out a new way to seek out and listen to voices -- including a number of Black and women writers -- that I previously encountered mainly through Twitter.

Again: I may not make this work as well as I like. And compared to the disaster that is befalling our country -- the pandemic, the economy, racial unrest, Trump -- it's an utterly small, insufficient move to try and change how I engage in discourse. Blogging is probably not going to be a thing again. Too bad. But I can only do what I can do. This is how I start.

PS: If you want to talk back to me, leave a comment! I'll talk back! And I'll curate comments so that angry people don't get to make it a cesspool for everyone! Not that I'm expecting a huge audience.