
You are committed to this goal, and you are likely convinced that you are pursuing it in all the right ways. But what if you are wrong about at least some of the specific ways you have been going about it? What if some of the things you have been doing in pursuit of your goals (e.g., frequently expressing outrage on social media, insulting others who hold views different from your own) are making the problems you want to solve worse rather than better? Are you willing to acknowledge that this is at least possible? And if so, would you want to know about it or would you prefer to continue on in ignorance?
I think you'd want to know. I think you'd want to know if some of your efforts were making things worse so that you could do things differently and improve your chances of success.
If you are a liberal who regularly vents outrage over Donald Trump on social media and insult those who support him, the following might be worth your consideration:
- Trump is using Twitter to manipulate the country. Here's how to stop falling for it
- How Trump Profits from the Outrage Machine
- The Party of Outrage
- We're still aghast at Donald Trump - but what good has that done?
- Democrats Are Walking Into a Trumpian Trap
If I thought that regularly expressing my Trump-related outrage on social media and insulting those who support Trump might be making things worse (i.e., strengthening Trump), I'd quickly stop doing it (assuming I had been doing it). How about you?
And yes, I do remember how some on the right behaved when President Obama was in office. I think we all remember that. The thing is, I'm not at all convinced that their bad behavior then justifies our bad behavior now. In fact, I'm reasonably confident that it does not. Being treated poorly by others does not somehow entitle us to treat them poorly while evading accusations of hypocrisy.