So, at 8:06pm on Thursday evening, I tweeted out something which seemed obvious to me...
As you can see above, the response has been...overwhelming. Nearly 22,000 retweets (including by Andy Richter, which probably accounts for a huge chunk of that); 38,000 “likes” and nearly 2 million views so far.
I’m hardly the only one to make this point, of course. John Scalzi uses a “Cable TV Package” analogy...
Let’s say you want HBO. So you go to your local cable provider to get HBO and the only way they’ll let you get HBO is to sign up for a premium channel package, which includes HBO but also includes Cinemax. Now, maybe you don’t want Cinemax, and you don’t care about Cinemax, and maybe never personally plan to ever watchCinemax, but the deal is: If you want HBO, you have to sign on to Cinemax too. You have to be a Cinemax subscriber to get HBO. And you go ahead and sign up for the premium channel package.
Pop quiz: In this scenario, did you just subscribe to Cinemax?
...while Jay Smooth took the topic on back in September:
...and finally, there’s this thoughtful piece from Sean Patrick Hughes which covers the same territory:
I’m not here to argue the legitimacy of the results. And I don’t get to pick and choose whether I support democracy because of the outcomes. I won’t tell you that you are a racist or a bigot if you voted for Donald Trump. I won’t even tell you that you personally are indecent. But I will tell you what you just bought with your choice. You bought a very vigilant, sensitive and loud American majority who will cry foul at the drop of a hat for anything that resembles attacks on those we have fought so hard for these last fifty years. Because what you showed us with his nomination and your vote in the election, is that you can’t be trusted to do it without us.
Anyway. Food for thought.
UPDATE: Wow...I swear I hadn’t watched this Comedy Central clip before I tweeted that out.