Read on Twitter
1) One of my biggest concerns going forward: these awful past four years have created a number of outrage addicts on our side who subconsciously want things to continue going poorly, so they can continue to feel outraged, or not have to take the risk of feeling hope.
2) We saw this in November when it was clear Biden was going to win, but many on our side still yelled "we're gonna lose." We saw it again when Trump tried his laughable court challenges, and many on our side yelled "the Supreme Court will rule for Trump no matter what."
3) Oddly, the "we're gonna lose" narrative went away when the Capitol attack happened. Perhaps this was because it was an actual bad story, instead of the usual made-up ones, and because everyone could clearly see that the attack wasn't helping Trump in any way.
4) Fear and loathing about the next 36 hours is understandable. There's an actual threat. It's a real thing. But I'm concerned that other, obviously imaginary things are prompting the "we're gonna lose" crowd back into action.
5) Take, for instance, tonight's fake story about Schumer sharing senate power with McConnell. Even CNN's article clearly debunked its own false headline. But it immediately set off a widespread "we're gonna lose" narrative on our side, despite not passing the smell test.
6) Worse, our side's subconscious desire to feel outrage, and to believe we're going to lose no matter what, set off a widespread round of inaccurate attacks on Chuck Schumer – all based on a false story. So now we're trying destroy our own leaders, just to feel outrage.
7) There's a reason the mainstream media frequently runs false or exaggerated stories about "Democrats in disarray." It's because our side responds to those false stories, not by questioning them, but by making them go viral because it lets us believe we're going to lose.
8) The current crop of Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are the best in my lifetime. But even with a majority they can't accomplish much unless we're fighting WITH them. If we fight AGAINST them, we cripple them, and we help the other side.
9) This is NOT the same thing as trying to push Democratic leaders in your preferred direction on the issues. That's fair game. But our side doesn't do much of that. We're too busy bashing Democratic leaders for imaginary things, to bother pushing them on real things.
10) If nothing else, these past four years have exposed how willing the media is to use false narratives to milk us for ratings. So the next time you see a story about Democratic leaders doing something bizarrely weak or stupid, stop and consider that it's likely not even true.
11) "But we must hold out Democratic leaders accountable!" Not if you're going to use false stories to bash them for things they didn't even do wrong. That's not accountability, that's idiocy.
12) There's also the ugly reality that a whole lot of liberal Twitter pundits are only interested in dishonestly bashing the Democrats in order to score cheap points and get attention. You have to learn to see through them, or else they'll keep steering you wrong.
13) The symbiotic relationship between the mainstream media outlets that create phony scandals about the Democrats, and the liberal Twitter pundits who use those phony scandals to turn rank and file liberals against the Democrats, is an unbelievably harmful one.
14) We're heading into a new era. Without Trump around to provide automatic ratings, the media will need to make up more fake scandals about the Democrats than ever in order to make up the lost ratings. In other words, the media will start lying to us more often.
15) If you think I'm being harsh, this is the same mainstream media that spent the entire 2016 election flat out lying about an imaginary Hillary email scandal, which directly handed the election to Trump. This isn't new. The media has always lied to you for the sake of ratings.
16) So going forward, when you see a story as suspect as 'Schumer hands partial senate control to McConnell' please be skeptical of it. Most such stories are simply false. Either poke around at it to determine if it's true, or if you don't have time, don't just assume it's true.
17) I'm not trying to kill the mainstream media. It plays a crucial role. It has inside sources, and broad investigative resources, that someone like me simply doesn't have. But you must understand that the mainstream media isn't your friend, and in fact sees you as the product.
18) Finally, I urge you to try to move on from the "we're gonna lose" mindset. We just won the presidency, the House, and the Senate. Numerous things are still very wrong, and none will be fixed overnight. But they're about to start getting better. It's what "winning" looks like.
