In
the last few weeks I have blocked three people on Facebook,
unfriended a few, and probably have been unfriended myself without my
knowing it.
Its
all about one or more of the following issues and I doubt you will be
surprised by any of it. I am a little surprised by the intensity and insanity of it all though.
My
friends are very happy because their candidate, Hillary Clinton, has
probably clinched the nomination for President from the Democratic
Party. Between you and me, I never really had much doubt that
Hillary would do this. She has always been the frontrunner and
seemed likely to me to win the nomination without the use of
Superdelegates. And of course if it came to the position of the
Superdelegates, I did not think there was much doubt about which way
that would go either.
I
am happy for my friends. It is a good thing when your candidate
wins, generally speaking. I presume my friends are ethical Americans
who are voting their beliefs and so forth and so on.
But
for a variety of reasons, most of which have very little to do with
Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton is not my candidate. Again dont get me
wrong, I love Bernie Sanders. I never thought he had much of a
chance of winning the nomination, but I am stunned and delighted that
he did as well as he did. Its just that I think I also know something about Hillary Clinton and the kind of president she will be.
But
now that Hillary has won the nomination (or all but won it, its not
really much in doubt) my friends are angry that I do not fall into
line and support Hillary.
And
boy are they angry. I have received two death threats and lots and lots of insults. Its OK, its helpful to know who actually respects
you enough to let you have your beliefs without throwing insults at
you. And clearly I do not have many such friends on Facebook, or for that matter anywhere, probably.
I
hope that when Hillary Clinton wins the Presidency that she becomes
as good a President as my friends believe that she will be. For my
part, however, I doubt it. I think she is a competent, process oriented, mainstream Democrat. I doubt she will be any better
nor any worse than any other power mad, middle of the road, Washington insider Democrat.
If
you do not understand by now that the status quo is not working for
millions and millions of Americans, then I am very happy for you. It
means that the system is working for you, and that is great, and I am
very jealous. You have my congratulations.
If
you want to understand why it is not working for others you are going
to have to look beyond the surface. You are going to have to ask why
there are so many Bernie and Donald supporters, each in their own
way. You are going to have to try and figure out how many people are
actually unemployed, underemployed, and / or impoverished.
As for me, I find that Facebook is not worth the aggravation. So instead of blocking and unfriending even more people, and the aggravation that involves, I am going to absent myself from Facebook for a few months, possibly until after the election. I am not really sure. If you want to know how I am doing, you will just have to email me or read this blog.
Good
luck to all of you and I hope you will keep in touch.
MIchael,
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing me to the blog. I'll keep in touch.
Threats are 110% insane. I might leave Facebook too, I don't get it.
Thad