A PurpleAmerica Pause
I Need a Social Media Break; It's Just Gotten Too....Ugh.
Dear PurpleAmerica Subscribers, Casual Viewers and Random Pokers,
It has been a pleasure for me to write this newsletter and discuss some of the issues that are out there. I started doing this about 14 months ago when I felt that too much media was focused on the arguments of the most extreme instead of the perspectives of those unaligned voters in the middle. To be sure, when I say “unaligned” I don’t mean that they didn’t have positions or opinions, I just mean they weren’t the raging activists pushing partisan talking points and trying to verbally bludgeon anyone who disagreed with them to death. They were thoughtful, rational individuals wanting to discuss calmly their thoughts and concerns without it turning into a partisan, pissing contest.
It’s been great to realize I was not the only one out there tired of the stupid partisan rhetoric. I’ve enjoyed many of your conversations over the past year and have been glad to incorporate many of the fine points you made in response to my articles into my general logic. Most importantly, I know for certain that there ARE PurpleAmericans like me out there and that we are continuing to make this nice little niche in the middle of the political spectrum. You’ve all demonstrated that civility, quality and integrity are much more important in today’s discourse than the repetitive, thoughtless, propagandistic slop vomited out there by most.
Unfortunately, putting this newsletter together regularly is a draining experience. It’s not so much the writing, which quite often results from me just getting peeved about something or noting something noteworthy in the news and then rhapsodizing about it. No, it’s more the promoting and feedback aspects of it. You see, I regularly post teases to the articles on various social media platforms. It’s helped me grow this little corner of substack from literally nothing to a pretty impressive and expanding fan base. Unfortunately, it also attracts its fair share of trolls who prefer everyone stay lockstep to a party line. Most of the time, it’s easy for me to tune them out, but it does wear on you. Sometimes they can get under your skin though and your mental health suffers for it. What has been particularly frustrutating for me is that the worst trolls I have encountered have been from the side I tend to politically lean towards, from people supposedly more educated, more thoughtful and more community minded. These trolls are none of those things, and are in fact also more adamant, more narcissitic and more relentless. They are so narrow-minded in their focus and strong in their hatred for anything not conforming to their worldview that nothing but the most monolithic partisan could possibly meet their expectations. To agree with them requires abandonment of all reasoned thought and logic; they expect everyone to compromise to them, but offer nothing of substance in compromise with anyone else.
Needless to say, lately it’s added up and taken its toll. Ever since the post titled “Should Biden Step Aside,” I have been inundated with social media traffic from the worst of the worst. In my mind, it’s never wrong to ask a question and consider what may occur; however, it is outright fraudulent for people to stick their heads in the sand about it or worse yet try and smother such questions to submission. What is even further perplexing is that they believe these tactics are helpful to their causes, when in fact it is extremely counterproductive.
So it is with some sadness that I am going to be taking a pause from writing on PurpleAmerica for awhile. I’m just burnt out and disspirited for the time being and need to recharge some batteries. It’s going to be a long year with the election coming, and with both of the parties seemingly settled on their nominees there is going to be a lot of mud flying earlier and longer than normal. This campaign year is going to feel like an eternity and if I don’t take a break now, I don’t know when I will be able to. In the meantime, I am converting all paid subscriptions to free or complimentary and going to encourage you all to be patient with me for a bit. I’ll be back on later this year for sure, but let me also suggest to many of you to get out and enjoy spring while you can. This year is going to be too long and the weather too nice to be stuck to a laptop reading the same perspectives over and over. Take a break and enjoy life a little. I know I am.
God bless and stay Purple. I’ll be back again soon.
Sincerely,
PurpleAmerica
And with that…
Every day I try to check myself and make sure I'm not putting my anger (my righteous anger, some pitiful part of my ego insists) out into the world and making things worse. I suspect I fail more often than I'd like. We need places we can put our anger at the attacks on our democracy without barfing it all over each other. That's only making things worse. I can totally understand wanting a break from it. You've been putting yourself out there because you love our country, and it's really hard. <3 Peace.
PurpleAmerica wrote:
***** I regularly post teases to the articles on various social media platforms. It’s helped me grow this little corner of substack from literally nothing to a pretty impressive and expanding fan base. Unfortunately, it also attracts its fair share of trolls who prefer everyone stay lockstep to a party line. Most of the time, it’s easy for me to tune them out, but it does wear on you. Sometimes they can get under your skin though and your mental health suffers for it.
[...]
So it is with some sadness that I am going to be taking a pause from writing on PurpleAmerica for awhile. I’m just burnt out and disspirited for the time being and need to recharge some batteries.*****
.
I am all sympathy. And not having ventured broadly into the wilds of social media, I have not had this kind of painful experience. I do not judge!
That said, this retreat from the mob saddens me.
It also inspires me. It is time that I risk exposing myself to trolls. I would like to think that I would withstand what may come. We shall see.