Last night, after reading Christine Blasey Ford's accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh from back when they were both in high school, I tweeted, "I believe Christine Blasey Ford."
As you can imagine, my following, which is mostly conservative, freaked out on me right away.
Of course, that's not all I'd tweeted. I'd tweeted that sex standards were majorly different in the 80's, that Kavanaugh was a high school kid back then (and so probably doesn't even remember what went on back then), that Ford's motives for coming out now are very obviously political, and that people don't want to lie about sexual assault unless they feel something major is at stake.
In this case, what's at stake is that Kavanaugh, a conservative, may be nominated to the high court. And Ford, a far-left professor, sees that as a national emergency.
Ford also is not necessarily lying about being harassed by Kavanaugh's friend group-- it may have felt a lot more traumatizing for her than anybody there realized, and the boys were drunk so it's not like they're going to remember it the way she did. Besides-- high school kids can be brutal. I don't know which pampered hunky-dory school you went to, but in the world I live, kids to wild things to each other all the time. Especially drunk kids.
Now-- do I think people's drunk high school actions should be affecting their adult lives? Obviously not. Do you think it's fair for things you did in high school to be evaluated in your adult life? I don't think anyone does.
Also, despite that Kavanaugh denied the allegations completely, his adult record is clearer than almost anyone who has sat in his seat. The worst blimp on his record is that his opponents were able to find was that he piled up credit card debt by buying too many Nationals games tickets.
But it doesn't matter. This case is a he-said-she-said case. And that means that whether or not you believe Ford is going to depend on your politics.
Which brings me to my main point: I'M SICK AND TIRED OF POLITICS, DOGG.
As someone who leans conservative, I want Kavanaugh's nomination process to be over and done with, and I can't believe it's being delayed by something so absurdly silly. But I want to be able to evaluate things on face value, and not be forced to react to everything based on a political knee-jerk reaction. Partisanship isn't religion; at least it shouldn't be.
Lately, I've been increasingly sick of this blind, tribal partisanship. For the GOP, it's been women. Any time you say anything that sounds even remotely like you are criticizing a man for his actions toward a woman, the conservative lobby immediately hounds you and calls you a far-left feminist without even trying to understand what you meant.
That's been the case for me. I spent the past several years on the right, defending men from the hypersensitive "sexual consent" campus culture that has destroyed so many of their lives. But the moment I tweeted my frustrations about something that was man-related in a single tweet, a large chunk of my followers went apeshit on me. And you'd think I'd complained about a date I'd went on or something. But nope, it was a pretty reasonable complaint.
I had complained about this: I asked a legit repairman to come to my apartment on a Saturday afternoon to help me fix my doorpost and some lights. I asked for the cost of the procedure UPFRONT to avoid any confusion. Not only did he show up significantly later than was expected; he kept lying about the tools he needed and sent me on a scavenger hunt with him for the sole intention of spending more time with me, had me spend a bunch of extra money buying tools he really didn't need (just to keep stalling), bought food in middle even though I told him it's getting late and I'm in a rush, and DIDN'T EVEN END UP DOING THE JOB I PAID HIM TO DO. And when I told him it's way too late and I need him to leave, he got frustrated and said that in truth he was hoping that this could be a date, and did I really need a repairman to come all the way out here to do such a simple job? I was furious and told him to please leave and he should have believed me when I told him upfront I needed help fixing my apartment. I was so busy that day and he wasted my time and money. I ended up finishing the job on my own and vaguely tweeting about it since I was experiencing similar things with men of all sorts lately.
"Men are the worst! blah blah blah blah blah........"
I know, I know. Twitter was not the place for that kind of thing. If I wanted to tell a story or describe something that requires more nuance, I should've written a blog post or something. Besides, why are you overgeneralizing about men? That's mean and sexist!
But here's the problem with my tweets: I triggered a political pressure point with conservatives, and that is men specifically. You can't complain about men in any way, because they'll freak out on you and call you a crazy radical feminist right off the bat, without even continuing to hear your story. That is how many conservatives are conditioned to react. I'm talking about myself here.
I vent on Twitter all the time. I overgeneralize everybody. ALL THE TIME. In fact, I make fun of people, joke, vent, whine about things, and muse random thoughts that don't make any sense-- and it doesn't ever bother anybody. Everything is happy and la-dee-dah until I say something that contains a political trigger-- if I say something that sounds conservative, my followers'll cheer, and if I say something that sounds not-conservative, they'll go crazy.
I'm still being blindly called a whiny far-left feminist for tweeting about the sucky repairman, and I've lost almost 1,000 followers since that incident. I'm glad I shook these people off, because I don't want to keep trying to have conversations with people who are only looking for a political cheerleader.
But honestly, I'm sick of it. I know it's my fault since I chose this path and I love politics and I'm always tweeting and writing about politics and love trolling people and causing a riot... but I'm starting to feel sick and tired of all the mindless tribalism. I'm sick of receiving so much hatred from the left for no reason other than my political affiliation, and sick of receiving hatred from the right every single time I don't say something they like.
I'm sick of not being able to have a conversation that is nuanced and real, and not cheerleading for a specific political party all the time. I'm sick and tired of politics, dogg. And I want to be somewhere else.
Hollywood?
Ugh. That place is even more political than Washington. Never mind. Scratch everything I just said. I'm good here for now. TTYL.