I came to Twitter late, 2011-12, and I came just to see what it was that had mesmerized a lot of mostly bright and younger “conservatives” who were prominent of the internet,
So I began by following several “prominents” who were known to me. I also noted who just came to vent, who came to debate, given the limitations, and who came to advertise their party, their ideology, or just their wares. I didn’t follow any left-wingers, well-spoken or otherwise, but Twitter obliged me by putting several in my time line anyway, and since I carry strange hours, carried a few over until next day. I never learned their formula for choosing them for me.
Then Donald Trump came along and changed the Twitter formula altogether, since millions came to Twitter simply because of him. And Twitter hated Trump. In fact, he was (is) The Enemy personified, only it didn’t take long before Twitter also knew him as their meal ticket. Moreover, others less known in the political world of conservative belles-lettres, radio and television; James Wood, the Hollywood guy, and Scott Adams, the cartoon guy, both very fine wordsmiths were high among them. (I’m sure some leftie trolls have printed out and bronzed some of their smack-downs as likely the high point of their still very young and going-nowhere lives). They have hundreds of thousands of followers, while Rush Limbaugh to this day swears Twitter is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Bolsheviks.
Wood and Adams, along with moralists, Rush’s brother included, and Christian apologists (a favorite side-line of mine at UnwashedPhilosophy.com) and a score of very talented younger conservative who’ve really grown in recent years, Ben Shapiro high among them, rounded out an hour or two’s study a day.
But Twitter is also where I’ve watched several men and women who proclaimed “conservatism” without really knowing why, slowly slip away, simply because they could never accept, in Chesterton’s words, that “All men are ordinary men, but it’s only the extraordinary men who know it.” Sadly when they came to the crossroads where they had to choose between the original road blazed by our Founders and their more comfortable “no-skin-in-the-game” membership with establishment respectability, they demurred.
Twitter showcased the bunions on the feet of what passed as conservatism before Trump, and always passes as opportunism, such as the rise of the Mecklers and Jenny Beths, who seized upon that historic 2010 awakening of the People to create genuine organic Tea Parties, first in the House, only to find that most of the Republican Establishment was already smitten by hidden big money, just not for the same reasons as the Clinton’s, Biden and Menendez. Took us 10 years to find all this out.
It’s all been there for all to see on Twitter.
So, despite the obvious prejudice (and eventual legal demise of biased media entities such as Twitter, Facebook, even Google/YouTube) I think true Americanism has done fairly well on Twitter. It’s given us a chance to observe a genuine shaking-out of what once was “conservatism-without-the-people” and what is now “conservatism-among-the-people”.
Eye-opening, and I don’t think Twitter or Facebook ever intended it to be that way.
Twitter rose in this political minefield, and it would be a libel to assume it was born out of a desire to provide a political forum just to make a few bucks. The Left is their base, where their loyalty lay, and there is an end game.
And their attempt to manipulate, hornswoggle and intimidate true patriots is on display everyday. There is, as seen today, the story that really isn’t a story, the naming of Kamala Harris to be Joe Biden’s VP, when we really don’t know that Biden will ever be the nominee. And I still don’t know what color Kamal is. Twitter is a mere echo of the Media here, and they are running what amounts to a daily soap opera about Joe and Kam, sort of like keeping the peoples’ minds glued to their daily radios and comic strip dramas in the ’30s…while Hitler’s invasion of Poland didn’t fully sink in until three and a half years later.
Twitter has targeted the knee-jerk, can’t think for themselves “conservatives” better than you know, in part because we almost never notice. And Twitter has all sorts of inducements to recruit new members, mostly by offering them a guaranteed Following.
Twitter knows “Accumulating Followers” is a great inducement for they know, not from the feeding frenzy of the Left, but from the vanity-driven Right, that the “true measure” of Twitter power is to be a “social media personality”, recognized by Wikipedia and Google as a player, all because of the size of one’s Followers, including having a few notable followers, such as Alex Jones.
When I first came to Twitter in 2010, I was amazed at all the luminaries of the Right I didn’t know existed, a few of whom, if you just signed on recently, you still haven’t heard since many have virtually disappeared, or, as Dr Fauci would say, “their curve has flattened”. They’re still there, and their Twitter Followers still number in the tens to hundreds of thousands and they still tout a few truly notable names who follow them, as Parkay would put on their label that they have been recommended by the American Fake-Butter Assn. But they carry no punch, no more no less than Kathy Griffin carries punch.
But back to Twitter, I went there to study this phenomenon, for it seemed that Twitter was the place that a no-body could appear to be a somebody just by having a lot of Followers, and nothing else. I knew some rising stars in conservatism who became obsessed with Twitter from the early days, seeing it as a place to win friends and influence even more people by the most ancient of social devices, the cocktail party whisper-circuit (“Count of Monte Cristo”, anyone?) then saw their little worlds come undone with the rise of America’s junkyard dogs’ new hero, Donald Trump.
The ultimate in “projection” by the Left, lacking any moral compass, they view the narcissism of the young on the right as an exploitable vanity, not knowing that many of ours will some day find their way back, mainly because the Left doesn’t know there is even a “back” to return to. This is the kind of self-contradictory, self-destructive thinking we have to contend with.
So for your consideration, I only offer the notion that some of the high-number Twitter-mavens who claim to be on our side may be poseurs, placed there by Twitter to stir up defeatism in our ranks, especially as things begin to fall apart or them.
Look for this from both low-number trolls, and high-Followed regulars who display traits of toe-taping and teat-fittery when they don’t get their way, a la Ann Coulter, only are unknown outside of Twitter…no website, no podcasts, maybe just a large coffee klatch, a la Cindy Sheehan. Both male and female, if things don’t go their way, as with the imminent indictments from the Durham investigation, and the people who “should be” indicted but aren’t, or the exact USC statement of their crimes, plus the “obvious conclusion” that Barr and Durham really are deep-state, or the fix was always in…
…the insinuation is that…maybe you should reconsider voting this Fall?
Take your ball and go home.
I could spend paragraphs listing the contradictions this sort of thinking speaks to the subliminal notion that leadership and thinking of Trump is lacking, which is one of the fixed stars in the plan for America’s future the next 30 plus years.
Stretch their logic out and you see the defeatism in the their whining.
This nay-saying may just be classical self-indulgence. Our side is not immune to it. Yes, it is the same sort of teatty-babyism that is burning down cities now, and yes, we have our spoiled brats, too,
But they also may well be plants.
I’m not clairvoyant, so won’t try to single one out versus another. Just don’t let them change your vote.
If I have any worries, it’s about the sheer breadth and volume of the attacks we’re about to see the next 90 days, from planned riots to killings, to a magnitude of misinformation from dozens of directions, coming at us both with the intensity of thunder storms to the low murmur of whispers in the dark.
I’ve long since urged taking up the offensive and blooding their noses. But my dad, a WWII vet of 3 campaigns, and having lived through two bullet-riddled union wars, might say, “Keep you cool, and titty your cards” because the real war may not start til after the election, no matter who wins.
My advice now: America’s Reformation is only just beginning. And Twitter, et al, likely won’t be around to see it completed. Just make sure you are.
