Yglesias writes about the shocking rise in "bad behavior." It ranges from murder to reckless driving to unruly passengers on airplanes to excess drinking. He places almost all the blame on the pandemic, which makes sense from a correlative point of view. However, I can't help but think that the broad anger in America is not just in America. We see violent protests around the world over pandemic safety measures.
I wonder what the role of social media is on all this. Even briefly dipping my toe into Twitter exposes a vast, self-reinforcing tide of anger and vitriol. If someone posts a list of favorite Beatles' songs, someone else will naturally come along and tell them how stupid their list, how stupid they are for liking the Beatles and how come they didn't have "Blackbird" on their list.
Trump obviously dominates this era, and I can imagine how a future historian might call this the Trump Era, even if he disappears from public life. He typifies the meanness and bile of online life. He's the Troll-In-Chief. In this sense, he very much is the symptom, not the cause.
The pandemic has rubbed our very last nerve raw, but social media then squeezes lemon juice on it.
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