For quite some time now, probably about a year, I’ve been a member of a Facebook group called Berniecrats. Well, visitor to the page, anyway. Saying member of the group conjures up an image of us all meeting for tea and cookies on Thursday afternoons, or something, instead of a group of strangers with a political conviction in common.
Anyway, a month or two ago, things got a bit out of hand, with the excessive number of trolls, and the admins pretty much threw up their hands. A lot of people left, I guess you could say the smarter ones. I hung on, figuring it didn’t matter if trolls were present, we outnumbered them and, besides, that gave us someone to argue with. It does get rather boring agreeing with people all the time, and that’s not at all the reason I’m on Facebook.
Anyway, it has recently become clear that the admins themselves are a huge part of the problem. Either the whole thing has been an elaborate trolling ruse from the start, or they have honestly come to the political opinion (as they claim) that Bernie betrayed the movement he started by supporting Clinton, that he should have run as an independent, or maybe a Green, or something equally futile. I tend to the elaborate ruse theory, since most Bernie fans are still Bernie fans, and support him in the fights he’s waging, on our behalf, right now.
Anyway, I’ve been arguing with a couple of them, and now find myself kicked off the site. It’s O.K., I’ve been kicked off other sites before (including one poetry page, but I’m pretty sure politics was the reason), and I suppose what I said might have been construed as an ad hominem attack, and usually I would agree that cheap puns on people’s names are lame (as much as I despise her, I get real tired of people thinking they’re clever calling her Killary, or Shillary), but Claybell Dumbfuck (the troll’s name is Collin Daybell) just tumbled from the tips of my typing fingers.
Whatever. I belong to a few other Bernie sites, so this will reduce the clutter a bit.