Stay Strong, Keep Fighting, but Stop the Unspeakable Schoolyard Insults, Even if ‘They’ Insulted you First
There was a recent Left-leaning Facebook thread that brought up Rush Limbaugh’s diagnosis of advanced Lung Cancer. The FB thread, like so many FB threads, quickly descended into unspeakable comments. Here are a few quips from the thread:
Thoughts and prayers for the cancer and its family.
Long and painful
I hope it takes a long, long time for him to die.
Two caveats before we continue:
- Rush Limbaugh has spewed out despicable vitriol for five decades, and has made millions off of it
- Unspeakably insensitive Internet comment-section insults are everywhere. Left-leaning comments like this are but a few of millions spewed out every day.
But still — for argument’s sake, let’s rethink the above Left-leaning, Progressive-thread comments by juxtaposing them against actual Progressive ideals:
- No more Wars
- No more Global Warming/No more Environmental Destruction
- Rights for the Oppressed
- Health Care for all
Nowhere in the Progressive manifesto does it promote painful ends to our ideological enemies, and even if it does — we need a new manifesto.
And it’s true, these are just a few comments by private citizens, and not official Progressive policy.
But still, there’s a disparity here amongst our ideals and the grass roots level of some our discourse, and we need to change.
And this change starts with YOU, with US
Yes — WE need to change. Not THEM over THERE, not THOSE GUYS. Not THOSE RED STATE MAGS whom we meme about without ever bothering to meet. WE, US, WE need to change.
Yes, the President will surely Tweet out his own unspeakable insult right after this piece is published, and he’ll probably spell it wrong as well.
But we can’t control him or his supporters. We can only control ourselves.
And the best way to control our own grass roots discourse is to remember the best of our leaders.
The Best Left-leaning Leaders didn’t Insult — They Aimed Up
Think of MLK, JFK, RFK, FDR, Mandela, Gandhi — those whose very memory make us proud to be human.
Would they ever trash someone online like so many of us do?
They’d go after that person’s policy, and state what they were FOR, but it’s hard to imagine any of the above figures mocking another person like we do regularly.
Can you imagine MLK doxxing someone?
Or JFK saying Ask not what your country can do for you, but cancel the show of a celebrity who expressed an opinion I didn’t like.
Can you imagine Gandhi making a public prayer for Rush Limbaugh’s painful end?
No, you can’t because they were better, or at least tried to be.
And we need to be better as well, even in the comment section
In 2016, Hillary Clinton delivered a Twitter burn to Donald Trump, Delete your account, her most retweeted insult ever!
Bam!
And then Donald Trump clapped back with an insult of his own, which set more records.
And then he won.
And then we on the Left shared countless images of Donald Trump with his neck looking oversized, or his hair up in the air.
And after each Twitter insult, his popularity rose.
So what is the solution? Be better. Not just our leaders, but you, me — all of us.
Keep the fight up, keep up the RTs, keep up the attacks on our opponents’ policy.
But stop with the personal insults, even against those like Rush Limbaugh. It not only dilutes the Progressive message, but can outright demolish it.
Want to know how to respond to those who think differently? Watch how Bernie Sanders does it
Whether you agree with his policy or not, Bernie Sanders knows how to speak to those who think differently. Case in point, his speech at the ultra-conservative Liberty University. No insults, or Twitter-slams, or alienating 50 million voters with a single Tweet.
He brought his respect, brought his best, and guess what? Some in the audience cheered, and all respected him.
That’s how you talk to strangers. That’s how you bring your message to those who think differently.
That’s how you win.
And we need to start winning as well, even at the grassroots level of the comments section.
Jonathan Maas is a Progressive on his best days, and Left of Center on the rest. He listens and respects opposing viewpoints on all days. He has 10 books on Amazon, and more on the way. He has also directed a SciFi movie starring Eric Roberts, among others.