How the Millennials of both sides are fueling violence and division online
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Sept. 29, 2023
This morning, I saw on the local television newscast that a middle
school nearby was evacuated and closed due to a credible threat of
violence.
What happened over the last three days was too predictable: First,
a few videos of (seemingly staged or premeditated) school fights
leaked out to social media; second, a well-known far-right
influencer reposted the videos along with unverified rumors (she
insinuated, without any evidence or credible source, that they were
videos of a "trans-identifying male" [sic] attacking girls
unprovoked); then the videos went viral and the right-wing talking
heads and "news" sites quickly picked up the story; then a nonstop
inundation of nasty phone calls to the school and the school
district office began, followed by several threats of violence, at
least one of which was deemed credible enough for the school
officials to shut the school for the day.
Stochastic terrorism and online incitement of hatred and violence
by the Republicans and other conservatives have been on the rise
since 2020. Once considered a near-exclusive domain of the leftist
fringe such as the Black Blocs and the Antifa, uncivil behaviors
such as rioting, bomb threats, vandalism, doxxing, and online
trolling have become standard tactics for the MAGA crowd, of which
the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has been the most
egregious.
I was a left-wing political activist during the first two decades
of this century. I became very active in the local activist scene,
especially during the days of the Occupy movement. Back then, I was
increasingly getting tired of the far-left extremism that festered
within the movement and the organizing space. The "radicals" wanted
to go "protest" every night and vandalize local small businesses.
They wanted to protest for the sake of protesting, without offering
any practical ideas to make our society a better place. They
opposed and rejected electoral politics. They were extremely
obsessed with identity politics and with labeling who are the
"privileged" "oppressors" and who are the "oppressed." They
explicitly wanted to divide and Balkanize society along racial,
sexual, and class lines, supposedly for the sake of liberation and
solidarity with the oppressed.
I was disillusioned by those Social Justice Warriors -- now called
"Woke" -- who were never interested in finding common grounds that
unite us as people and work towards common good for all. After all,
I was a product of the 1980s and the 90s. There were certain things
that were non-negotiable then, regardless of one's political or
partisan tendencies. We generally held roughly similar ideals about
freedom, human rights, peace, equality, and justice, even though
there were diverging ideas about how to attain them. Although there
were heated disagreements between the Democrats and the
Republicans, they never called the President of the United States
"illegitimate" or "a fascist" until 2000. We were concerned about
what "the other party" was doing, but we did not fear them as
though their victory meant an existential crisis. For the most
part, the Republicans and the Democrats used to agree on
practically everything 9 out of 10 times, even though some details
differed.
Lately, I am amazed by how all this has been mirrored by the far
right. Some of them even openly admit that they stole the far-left
organizing and activist tactics, even crediting Saul Alinsky. Even
a generation ago, this was simply considered unacceptable by most
Republicans, as they valued traditional civility and discourse, and
the sort of antics exhibited by today's far-right would be
considered beneath the dignity of Conservatism.
But come to think of it, the demographic that is now dominating the
online far-right spaces (think of Charlie Kirk, Matt Walsh, Michael
Knowles, Chaya Raichik, Allie Beth Stuckey) are largely
Millennials. They are digital natives who grew up with the same Web
2.0 as the Progressives of their age. And many of the angry Moms
for Liberty types are without doubt in their late 20s and 30s
today, very likely exposed to the Social Justice Warrior-type
activism in their youth (and many of them probably were part of it,
before they were disillusioned with the SJWs).
And yet, they also rose to the current state of popularity thanks
to a constellation of opportunities they could conveniently
exploit: COVID-related government policies and the emerging
coronafascism and religion-like adherence to masks and vaccines
among the liberals, public school teaching of critical race theory
and transgender activism, and seemingly endless Black Lives Matter
riots in major cities that lasted for at least a month. Looking
back three and a half years ago, they seemed irrational and
excessive even to me, and for several months, even I supported
conservative groups that tried to help small businesses reopen and
churches exercise what they saw as inalienable freedom of religion.
And the forced isolation and dependence on the Internet during
those days only made the situation worse. While online platforms
made record profits during the lockdown, their algorithms amplified
hate speech and polarizing extremist content. The nation is more
divided than ever before, even though Donald Trump no longer has
the world's greatest megaphone. No one wants to make compromises
these days. Older generations understood that politics is an art of
compromise, and in a democratic society, no one gets everything
they want.
America is in a spiritual crisis, more than it is in a mere
political crisis. I used to think there may be a simple political
solution to this, but not anymore. It requires a fundamental and
population-level shift in spiritual consciousness, or as I might
call it as a former Baptist and a former Pentecostal, a Revival --
a divine intervention and a mass transformation of souls. By this,
I do not mean Christian Nationalism, theocracy, or Dominionism --
all of which are human political ideologies disguised as Christian
theology; I mean something far more fundamental, at the level of
the spirit, soul, and mind. Nothing less will break us free from
this toxic spiral of division, mutual resentment and suspicions,
enmity, and hatred.
