One of my most ironclad rules for maintaining stable mental health is, “Don’t feed the trolls.” I went ahead and violated it, and got what I deserved.
The rule comes down to this: When the cold-hearted, thick-headed rightwingers spew venom on social media, you should resist the burning urge to respond with logic and/or sarcasm. It’s giving them the raw meat they crave.
It’s also a waste of precious time and energy. You’re not going to learn anything new about them or their point of view. They’ll just spew harder, and you’ll come away thinking the same thing you thought when you went in: they’re deluded idiots.
They must hunker down in some imaginary homogeneous corner where they can pretend that people like me don’t exist or, failing that, rationalize why we are expendable.
But I couldn’t help myself. Somebody shared on social media an op-ed in praise of all the brave patriots and courageous defenders of liberty who are protesting outside state capitols and demanding that their governors immediately end the coronavirus lockdowns and let everyone return to work and to life as usual.
So I commented, “You want me to die so you can go shopping.”
I said that because I presume I am among those commonly referred to as the “most vulnerable” to the ravages of the coronavirus. I’ve lived with a physical disability for all of my sixty-plus years. I ride around in a motorized wheelchair. I sleep hooked up to a ventilator at night because of my reduced breathing capacity. So I figure the coronavirus would do me in.
On the other hand, my immune system seems to be the closest thing I have to a superpower. I rarely get sick. So maybe I would just shake the coronavirus off. Maybe I already have. The point is, I don’t want to be forced to find out the hard way. I’ll err on the side of overreacting.
But anyway, in response to my comment that I could die, someone replied, “If that’s what it takes. What about the Constitution don’t you understand?”
Wow! I admit I’m no Constitutional scholar, but I did have to pass a test on it to graduate high school, and I don’t recall reading anything about every citizen’s inalienable right to go shopping.
Another person replied, “If you are scared, stay home. Some of us have to work.”
The Trumpian doctrine, as I’ve always known, is deeply rooted in a soil of profound callousness. Nevertheless, some say we shouldn’t be too quick to judge those who subscribe to it most wholeheartedly. If we extend a hand and engage them, some say, we’ll often find that their aspirations aren’t much different than ours.
That might be true sometimes, but there are at least two people out there who are as cold-hearted as advertised. And I’m sure they’re not the only ones. When they encounter someone like me, they feel threatened because I complicate matters. I, as a disabled person, illustrate the consequences of their simpleton solutions that are designed to serve them above all. That makes them mad.
It’s ironic that they’re rebelling so hard against social distancing when maintaining their degree of ignorance requires a great deal of social distancing. In order to cling to the delusion that they are the only ones that matter, they must aggressively tune out and dismiss the constant intrusions of all of us square pegs who don’t fit in their round holes. They must hunker down in some imaginary homogeneous corner where they can pretend that people like me don’t exist or, failing that, rationalize why we are expendable.
Like my foray into the land of the trolls, these protests are a kick in the gut for me because they make it abundantly clear where I stand with the Trumpian truest believers. I defile their vision of paradise so they’d just as soon I was dead. That’s their solution.
But like I said, it’s not like I’ve learned something new.