It is the unfortunate side effect of Trump the Tweeter-in-Chief that the GOP is the Party of Trolls, the PoT, if you will, filling our timelines, our air waves, our news sources, even the White House press room with distractions and lies and nonsense. It is the albatross Republicans put around their own necks, but we no longer have to wear it with them.
The pendulum has swung rapidly away from support for draconian rightwing policy, Orwellian rightwing distractions, and discriminatory rightwing nonsense, in large part because the younger generation of the Parkland student activist variety called bullshit to it, and showed the rest of us it was okay, actually imperative to no longer engage the GOP trolls with reasoned rebuttals.
It was as if a light blinked on above the whole of American consciousness, and we collectively went like this: We can tell America their talking points are bullshit? Yes. Call them liars? Of course. And I don’t have to waste my time addressing their nonsense point by point? Nope. Just block them and stick to the facts? Like actually focus on facts? Yeah, we eat that shit up.
And, eat it up we did. Americans realized their own power to stand up and call bullshit to the status quo talking points hurting us, that essentially mean nothing, accomplish nothing, and continue to hurt us.
Because the Parkland students knew not to feed the trolls, they controlled the narrative from the beginning, and they have no intention of releasing the reins. As a result, we are especially seeing success with the seemingly overnight decline of NRA support and influence in the narrative over guns. The NRA just cannot get a foothold on even their most basic messaging these days, and, according to this article on Daily Kos, a recent poll by ABC News found “Americans now view acting to protect people from gun violence as a higher priority than safeguarding gun ownership rights by 57-34 percent. Those numbers were nearly even (46-47 percent) in October 2015.”
We are seeing it in the teachers of Oklahoma, who used social media and a show-no-mercy walkout to publicly shame their leaders into more funding for education and teacher pay raises, followed by West Virginia, Arizona, Kentucky and an expected strike in Colorado. The Oklahoma teachers were so successful in getting what they wanted, two Republican Colorado state Senators introduced this bill on Friday to deduct pay from Colorado teachers for each day they strike, in addition to imposing fines on Colorado teachers in the amount of $500 for each day they strike, and throwing those teachers in jail for up to six months if they strike.
We’re seeing it at the ballot box in special election contests and in the rise of Democratic support in the reddest of districts leading into the 2018 midterms. According to BallotPedia, 40 Republican incumbents, most notably House Speaker Paul Ryan, will not seek re-election in November amid the rise of special election Democratic wins in previous Republican strongholds and the expected blue wave sweep in November.
Stick to the facts. Don’t get distracted. Don’t engage the trolls.
Who knew these basic rules of the Internet could work in the real world? The Parkland students did. As every social media user knows, a troll only has power for as long as you allow it to poison your space and control your narrative. Its essence is in its ability to waste your time engaging its nonsense, its distractions, its desire to scare you and take you off topic. If you feed the troll, it wins, and it is a perpetual hungry little beast. The only way to neutralize a troll is to ignore it and stay on topic, and then block it when it tries to overwhelm.
The one lesson the Parkland students taught us, albeit unintentionally, and a trend I see continuing in greater frequency across the spectrum of American politics is this: Don’t feed the trolls. Show them no mercy, no tolerance, no respect. Give them no outlet for their vitriol, no platform for their toxic voice, no audience for which to vent, beyond their minuscule following of brainwashed lemmings. Stay on topic. And by all means, put it on a hat, if you must.
Don’t Feed the Trolls. Down with the PoT. PoT Insanity. Starve the Trolls. Troll Farm PoT. Do Not Engage the PoT. Know Your PoT, and stay far, far away. Know Your Trolls. We Call Bullshit.
Pick your slogan.