By saying something stupid, offensive, cruel, and misogynistic, the troll set off an outrage that grew his profile and undoubtedly raised disturbing levels of money from people who love it when people are rightfully outraged.

This political economy is broken.

And yes, I’m talking about the most recent incident, but this bad faith grift has trended this country toward authoritarian fascism, has powered the entire Right Wing ecosystem, boosted Trump and MTG and Boebert and that whole gaggle of dangerous grifters.

As long as people see a financial incentive to being cruel and racist and misogynistic and fascistic and in destroying shared society they’re going to take it and it’s going to continue to cost us lives and valuable, precious time.

Again, we have to rework how we deal with these trolls and grifts, both from individuals and media operations. Bad faith actors don’t care if you’re sharing or talking about something because you agree or disagree. In this attention economy it’s all the same.

This is why media puts out shockingly bad faith op-eds and articles. Because it captures everybody and just results in more revenue. This system is currently working only to hurt discourse and shared society. Reject it and learn from our time with Trump.

Trolls like the one we’re dealing with today benefit from outraging people, saying things that are outrageous and awful, and then profiting off the attention. It’s marketing and branding. Do not give these people clicks, impressions, or the satisfaction. It’s a grift.