Me, me, me, meme
Are the screamers louder because other voices are silent?
Use your job for retribution,
Flat ignore the Constitution,
When you are the Burger King, you have it your way.
Leave the state an empty husk,
Kiss the ass of Elon Musk,
When you are the Burger King, you have it your way.
The above is a rewrite. The original was about Watergate. It was chanted by stoned teenagers back when people were aghast that Nixon had an enemies list. Those were the days. Several weeks in, it seems like the list is all the people on that side have.
That and talking points. It’s worth engaging with those people on social media on occasion just to see what they say. Oddly, one can tell them that’s the only reason and they continue to parrot their leaders.
“You know I only engage with GOP/Russia trolls out of curiosity, right?”
“Russia, Russia, Russia. That’s all you Biden-lovers got.”
And so forth. You can tell the real ones from the Russian bots. The bots use better grammar, and can mostly spell.
Most of the real people parroting the GOP/Russian talking points on social media apparently think they’re doing something new. They’re not. When they’re doing their on-line “research,” they need to go back to 1969 or so, when the English historians Lennon and McCartney wrote their magisterial biography of Mean Mr. Mustard.
“Takes him out to look at the Queen, only place that he's ever been, always shouts out something obscene.”
Today, Mr. Mustard’s sister, Polythene Pam, could simply leave him at home in front of the internet, where he could blame Taylor for Kansas City’s Super Bowl loss and Biden for the price of eggs, all in the service of owning the libs.
It does seem there are those who not only have nothing better to do, but indeed get their only joy from repeating the memes and talking points that litter the internet like graffiti on the walls of an underpass. But they can’t seem to get past mere repetition. I think of it as the hard bottom, a homage to “Top Gun,” in which Tom Cruise is the only one who can save us, although it’s never clear from what. It’s really more of a ceiling. There are people who simply cannot carry their arguments above a certain point. Stymied in one direction, they pivot like rhetorical ballerinas.
“You know Trump has had several bankruptcies, right, and the great businessman you see is a fantasy created by a reality TV show?”
“And you liberals are still watching ‘Gray’s Anatomy.’ How many sex changes and abortions did they do this week?”
Back in the days of landlines and phone books, there was a fellow who used to call our answering machine now and then to scream about our political views. During one of those he began repeating the word “and” several times, sounding like a cross between Buddy Holly’s hiccup and a man who’s forgotten what he meant to say. Finally, he spit it out. “And . . . and . . . and Benghazi.” It was a perfect right-wing screamer moment. No need to reference the issues, actions, or geopolitical implications of whatever may have happened there, but just a single word that encapsulated all that was wrong with one of our world views. “Hold the nuance, hold the details, special orders are a lib fail.”
I think one reason this kind of senseless, rote, angry comment style seems more prevalent is that it’s a greater percentage of the conservative commentary. Those who can think in whole paragraphs and write in whole sentences are smart enough to know what a horrible mistake the election was, and they’ve gone quiet, perhaps out of embarrassment for Marco Rubio and his ilk. Rubio, confirmed unanimously by the Senate because, presumably, he could put the brakes on Trump’s worst instincts, is now fighting Vance for the accelerator.
Many of the few remaining sensible conservatives are silent, knowing they’re the only ones who can slow the skid between now and the next Congressional elections, but asking not what they can do to save their country. They’ve left the debate to the screamers and memers.