When You Engage Trolls, Expect Flung Feces

By ROB PATTERSON

Some people may not feel that debating with right wingers on the Internet is entertainment. But it is for me. Occasionally.

Not that it does any good. But I hold out hope ...

A recent thread on Facebook did help me hone my approach. Someone posted that the US government was advertising in Latin America, inviting the flood of refugee children here that led to the border crisis. And, as always, blaming Obama.

Sounded dicey to me. Did a quick web search and of course untrue, in fact quite the opposite, there’s a federal campaign south of our border to dissuade the kids from fleeing our way.

Politely posted that the guy was wrong with links. Pointed out from my construction industry trade magazine reporting some little-known facts about illegal immigration: how no well-paying big building, highway or factory projects would happen without “illegals.” How the commercial construction industry has had a workforce crisis because Americans don’t want to go into that field, even if starting grunt pay is $15/hour and skilled workers get $20/hour and up. Hence migrants don’t just come and take low-paying jobs. How the deducted taxes from illegals (who don’t file for return checks) yield many millions onto the balance sheet against the cost of the social services that anti-immigration types howl over illegals getting “for free” at our expense.

The guy did kind of concede. But then launched into a tirade doubting my qualifications and the accuracy of my information. Of course he did so without even doing as I did and gathering any info. And implying that I thought I was smarter than he was, typical liberal, blah blah blah. The undercurrent was anger and resentment. At someone rationally offering facts.

Bill Maher calls the right-wing delusional mind set “the bubble.” And they get mad when you poke at and puncture it.

Another right-winger jumped in attacking me. At that point, having some basic Internet manners, I messaged my friend whose page this was happening on and told him I would gladly cease if he wanted me to. He urged me on (I later learned he headed his college SDS chapter).

I should have stopped then. But I do have a mischievous side that does find, for a bit, their reactive “insults” (which if not true don’t insult me). And am rather fascinated by their stubborn refusal to believe facts and the truth. But as such exchanges invariably do, it descended into their ranting about Obama in racist ways – though the new racism firmly believes it is not racist – and calling me a moron.

I poked back at them like a delinquent teenager bothering monkeys at the zoo. And yes they flung their feces back my way. It finally came down to two supposedly grown men that live nearly 1,000 miles from me threatening to beat me up.

Which is hilarious, as it’s the emptiest of threats. Yet also sad and chilling.

Is there any way to reach these people? My friend later told me that in their youth the two guys had been like us, participants in the counterculture, one had even been a pot dealer. He agreed with me that the spark that lit this fearful, hidebound and angry to the point of hateful in too many Americans was 9/11.

I’m glad that when I made my empirical case I refined my messaging – something the Democratic Party desperately needs to do. And I should probably stop being childish and engaging them any further. I have far better things I can do to entertain myself.

In the end it did depress me, because I had been already wondering from the public dialogue in the media if there is any way of reaching these people? The worst case (of many bad ones) is the denial of climate change. Why do these people so resent and refuse to believe people that know better as a result of empirical evidence and logic? (Recent studies suggest even genetic predispositions to the right or left.)

But there remain more of us than them. The tide of history – the election of a black president, gay rights and marriage becoming accepted, even marijuana getting legalized – indicates that America is a left-of-center nation. But the right wing delusions, lies, fear and hate get the media attention, and are not challenged with the needed swiftness, vigor and factuality needed. And all of us from the center to the left have to become a lot more motivated and committed to asserting reality.

So maybe arguing with right wingers on Facebook is worth my time. Sometime in the coming months I imagine I will again, being myself in deluded denial about its futility. But maybe, just maybe, I can puncture just one bubble and help bring truth back into play.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2014