The GOP is dead. If you think that’s hyperbole or you think I am making that up we should heed the words of Donald Trump Jr. Obviously the name still exists. People will carry the title in the halls of Congress, state legislatures, school boards, and city councils. Still, make no mistake. It is very much dead.

Listen long enough to the kid’s thoughts you get the idea that they think this is a good thing. In addition to the takeover of the RNC, there have been whispers that he wants to drive all non-MAGA Republicans out of the party. I’m not sure what that makes the Republican party because the platform has become the man. I’m not exactly certain what that means because he doesn’t know what it means.

This is not really new ground, but should be the backdrop of where we should go from here. Yes, he absolutely needs to be defeated and possibly thrown in jail. I say possibly because I just don’t see it happening. Some people have the knack for avoiding responsibility. Maybe everything catches up with him if he loses in November.

The question is what to do after that. What have we learned? Can the GOP be rebuilt or will a new center-right party emerge in its ashes? Either way, all of us should reckon with how an evil and unfit man could advance that far in American politics. Sure, Democrats can call this a Republican problem but it is really an American one. If a similar charismatic leader that promised victory and power emerged on the left could the Democrats resist them if he or she were unfit?

We must contend with a few inconvenient facts. The main one is that the last eight or nine years has made us collectively worse. There can be no denying this. We have become a more hateful people. Whether we hate him or the people that he hates, we are a more hateful people. A large part of this is owning our own role in this cycle of hate.

I see it on social media as I offer my opinion on my public wall and see it devolve into a pissing match between liberals and conservatives. I am either wittingly or unwittingly egging this on by commenting in the first place. Even though my words haven’t been hateful, a small part of me responds in glee when I see my friends roast someone I don’t agree with.

Are they really horrible people or do we just have a difference of opinion? The answer is not so simple. I think the words, deeds, and aura of this man has brought the worst out in people. Those feelings were always there. Those opinions were always there. He just made it okay. People that do and say horrible things are at least on the road to being horrible . There is always redemption and there is always forgiveness, but we also have to be very honest about what we are dealing with.

Yet, there are also folks that are good and decent people that simply hold conservative viewpoints. There are good and decent people that hold liberal or progressive viewpoints. The way through the fog is identifying the difference. Can we identify decency in those we disagree with? In some cases that decency simply is not there. We cannot allow indecent people anywhere near leadership. It is not fair to say that conservative people are all indecent, but it seems like a majority of indecent people are conservative. It will take all of us to get this ship back in order. We have to realize that decency is more important than party.

You’ll recall that in the last session, Texas passed another stupid law, trying to make it illegal to take down inflammatory and false rhetoric from social media platforms.  They were targeting Facebook and Twitter, which, after years of comatose moderation FINALLY started taking down posts from white supremacists, insurrectionists, QAnon enthusiasts, and other weirdos pumping manure to the public.  The court blocked the law in a mixed opinion with the liberal justices, except for Kagen, plus Roberts making the ruling with the conservatives (and Kagen) voting no.  It was a relief, but it’s not over as the court sent the case back to the courts.

But that’s not the interesting part.  What’s interesting was Alito’s dissent.  He took the same side that he did in the Texas Bounty law on abortion, wanting to have a clearly unconstitutional law stand while it wound its way through the courts; but this time he said that the court will have to visit this case at some point. In his opinion he said:

“This application concerns issues of great importance that will plainly merit this court’s review,” he wrote. “Social media platforms have transformed the way people communicate with each other and obtain news. At issue is a groundbreaking Texas law that addresses the power of dominant social media corporations to shape public discussion of the important issues of the day.”

I agree that laws like this that threaten what little is left of civility in public debate are important, but I find it interesting that Alito is most concerned about social media moderation but is OK with taking away the right to vote and women’s rights to choose their own healthcare, while at the same time taking a completely hands off approach to gerrymandering, the greatest clear and present danger to the survival of our democracy.

The court’s problem is much larger than this particular opinion, and adds fuel to the fire that millions of Americans see the court now as illegitimate; I most certainly do, especially after the latest Trump/McConnell court packing that’s happened over the last decade.  The conservative super majority is cemented in now for future decades and that was accomplished by McConnell’s blatant cheating seeking retribution for Bork’s rejection by Democrats decades ago.  The court has transformed our country from a teetering and weak democracy to an oligarchy that protects the rich at the cost of everyone else.  The court now rules almost 90% in favor of corporations and has completely failed at its main responsibility, protecting the rule of law.

I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Washington Post reporter Annie Linskey got herself into some hot water this weekend with one of those jokes that went over like a pregnant pole vaulter. For those that don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, she essentially poked fun at Joe Biden’s trip through the cemetery to visit the graves of his family. Instead, she claimed he was visiting his domestic agenda.

According to Linskey, she did not know he was actually visiting his son’s grave. In the process, she learned two key things as it pertains to social media. First, once you hit send on a tweet it’s going to be out there. Sure, you can go back and delete the tweet, but someone has made a copy and will produce it on the ready.

Secondly, the urge to be first is strong, but an enterprising journalist has to remember it is more important to be right. Being first with a joke is even more pathetic. Exactly how many points does that get you? If she had taken the extra few minutes to figure out why he was there this could have been avoided. If she had taken the extra few minutes to realize she is a Washington Post reporter and not a comic at the local improv this could have been avoided.

As you might suspect, the outrage machine started up in full force. If Twitter is good for anything it is good for a nice ratio. The ratio is where numerous commenters and strangers get to pile on after an ill-advised tweet. So, hundreds of people commented with some saying they were canceling their subscription to the Washington Post. As of now she is still employed with the Post, but it doesn’t take a huge effort to see that changing before this story cycle ends.

As for Biden, he hardly reacted at all. If we can count on Biden for anything it is that he will always maintain his dignity. He will occasionally fumble through words or offer the occasional gaffe as any president would. Some of that is the stuttering. Some of that is a lifetime of not necessarily being a great orator. Heck, maybe some of it is age. What we do know is that he won’t do or say anything excessively mean. The last guy would have jumped at that opportunity.

We should keep that as our guide on what to do about Linskey. While it can seem fun to put someone through the ringer for a horrible mistake, we do have to remember she is human. We have to remember we all make mistakes. We have to remember that she has likely done 100 good things for every one bad thing she has done. While we can say that none of us has ever done THAT, we all can say we have done something awful that would have been ridiculed in public if any of us had a higher social media profile.

So, here’s hoping that Linskey learns something valuable from this experience and that she has the opportunity to demonstrate to us that she is a better person for it. Destroying a reporter for a bad joke doesn’t seem appropriate. At least it doesn’t seem any more appropriate than the bad joke she attempted to take back.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” — First Amendment

Lately it seems that we get to complain about obvious things. I enjoy discussing things that aren’t that obvious. It stretches the brain to have to consider multiple points of the view. The recent breach of the conservative social network Epik brings this kind of debate to life.

This kind of discussion always begins with the first amendment. I included the verbiage above because it is one of the most misunderstood amendments in the constitution. Too many people seem to think it means you get to say whatever you want without consequences. That has never been the case and the folks discovered in the Epik breach are learning this the hard way.

In particular, this story came to a head when a Florida realtor was fired because of his social media presence. In essence he had set up numerous domains with controversial content. The end result is a classic case pitting someone’s misunderstood free speech rights against a business’s rights to have people they want to represent their product.

All that being said, the bolded portion of the first amendment is the key part in this case. The whole idea behind sites like Parlor and Epik was that people wanted a “safe space” to air their grievances. They knew they couldn’t regurgitate their bile in public, so they were seeking a private place where they wouldn’t get in trouble.

The operative word there is the right to PEACEABLY assemble. The trouble with these right wing sites is that they don’t seem to peaceably do anything. Sites like these are where a lot of the January 6th actors coordinated their efforts. Again, they are mistaking the nature of the freedom. Congress cannot outlaw people from meeting in groups as long as the meeting itself is not against the law or that those groups break the law during their meeting.

A classic example of this scenario might involve NAMBLA. As most people know, this is an organization of pedophiles. If they describe their love for pedophilia they technically aren’t breaking any laws at the meeting itself. If they exchange pictures or any other materials then they would be. The question is whether the government has the right to identify who is at this gathering in the first place.

These are all interesting questions given that all of these groups know full well that the majority of the population does not accept the validity of their point of view. So, individuals avoid voicing unpopular opinions because they understand the fallout. They join private groups in the hopes that they can voice their true feelings without facing direct consequences.

The difficulty here is that these are not groups just idly sitting around and talking about how much they hate black people (or any other group). Such a group would be reprehensible, but basically harmless. What creates this issue is that some people in the group (or even most in some cases) are using the assumed anonymity to plan actions that are obviously dangerous and against the law.

Moreover, while we have the right to free speech, we do not have the right to social media. We do not have the right to amplification. Anyone is free to set up social media with their own terms of service, but we can also be judged for what happens on those forums. It’s not cut and dried and it’s never easy. I can sympathize with someone hoping to keep their views private, but if a group is planning the next insurrection then that right to privacy should go out the window.

The pictures are all over Facebook and other social media. That’s right folks, they’re doing it again. Daunte Wright is barely buried in the ground and people are trying to bury him again. I wish I had saved the Facebook posts but they have been taken down. I wonder why.

For those that don’t want to click on the link, they’ve found Daunte Wright in pictures with guns. So, obviously he must have been a bad guy. They did the same thing with George Floyd and countless others before them.

Let’s ignore the hypocrisy for the moment of people that have no qualms about openly carrying huge firearms raising a stink about a black man taking a picture with his gun. I think we are far beyond the racist double standards at this point. The implications are much simpler than that.

See, Wright was a bad guy. How do we know he was a bad guy? Well, he’s dressed like a gang banger with his gun. See, he’s threatening. So obviously it’s not a bad thing that he was shot. That’s just one more dangerous criminal off the streets. The beauty of the Facebook memes is they don’t even have to say that. If you get the racist code you are already thinking it.

The problem is two-fold. First, the reasoning only works if the officers knew all this at the time. They didn’t know who Wright was when they pulled him over. Even when they looked him up they only knew he had an outstanding warrant. They did not see a gun on the scene. Cops are supposed to assess the situation at hand. They wouldn’t have had the benefit of seeing those pictures beforehand and even if they did it wouldn’t have helped them properly assess that particular situation.

Of course, that leads nicely into the second problem. How do we know he was a bad guy? Do pictures with a gun indicate that definitively? If only there was some kind of mechanism like a court with judges and a jury that could help us determine that. That’s what’s supposed to happen. They aren’t supposed to be gunned down by the police when they are unarmed.

I’m a little more than sick and tired of the postgame chicanery from the right. They’ll post numbers of how many white people are killed by cops. They’ll post how many of them are unarmed. Even if we took those numbers at face value it doesn’t excuse any of it. It just makes the point come through with more force.

If we want to get to the bottom of this thing we can’t scour the inter webs trying to find anything to make the victims look guilty. We need to figure out why those officers went through the steps they did. Racism is surely involved on some level but maybe it wasn’t the key factor here. Maybe this would have happened regardless. Either way, we need to take a good long look at procedures and what they lead to. A postgame picture can’t erase the shame or tragedy of this event or make the officers any less guilty.

Today, Twitter announced it was suspending alt-right twitter accounts.  Alt-right, you say?  You know, those guys who hate everything: women, African-Americans…hmm…It’s actually easier to say what they support, which is white supremacists.  White supremacists with guns.  Since Steve Bannon of Breitbart joined the Cheeto campaign and is now White House chief advisor to… I just can’t say it – to Him, the alt-right has spilled out into the public arena spreading their racist, misogynist, and hate filled rhetoric all over social media.  Yesterday, a week after the elections, Google and Facebook decided it was time to close the barn door, now that the entire herd of horses got out last Tuesday.  Twitter followed suit today, joining the other social media company at the back of the pack, cancelling hundreds of alt-right accounts spewing the same hateful rhetoric.

Thanks, Twitter, for helping us out and being so timely.  (That was sarcasm.)