Every once in a while, I wade into political discussions on social media. I know . . . I am a glutton for punishment.
I don’t do it all the time, and I try to be selective about where I do it. More often than not, it’ll be in the comments on one of my own posts or a post made by a friend. I am more likely to get civil, intelligent responses there than out on the ‘open’ Internet with its millions of fired-up anonymous partisans, Russian bots, and paid astroturfers. And normally this goes okay; we have a passionate but polite discussion, and everybody who participated learns something about those who disagree with them.
One of my Facebook acquaintances is somebody I don’t actually know very well. She is a ‘friend of a friend’ who connected with me at some point, and I accepted because there was no reason not to. I usually enjoy her posts. She is a hard-core right-winger, and while she is not the only one on my friends list, she is probably the most vocal and forward about it. I agree with her a lot of the time, but not always. But whether or not I agree with her on some particular issue, it’s undeniable that she’s smart, sincere, and passionate.
Recently, she posted a statement by Dr. James Dobson in response to a Christianity Today editorial favoring the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump (R). Nothing against Dobson, but it was mostly polemical nonsense. He starts off by saying, “The editors didn’t tell us who should take [Trump’s] place in the aftermath.” Well they didn’t need to! If a president is removed, the vice president becomes president. So the dastardly left-wing maniac who would replace Trump would be . . . Vice President Mike Pence (R).
