Social media kills political understanding
Perhaps your only concern is, understandably, keeping him out of office. Fine. But to defeat something, you must understand it. And treating this quite plausible political threat as a kind of strange alien which does not so much befriend as contaminate our loved ones, and which can have no other explanation than as a manifestation of our most base intolerance and bigotry, probably isn’t quite “steel-manning” the opposition.
Why has such child’s play become so politically mainstream? The answer perhaps lies in the second reason: social media. Politicians are the nervous hostages of voters, who at present are the nervous hostages of malicious algorithms designed to cultivate self-assurance and righteousness with artistic precision.