Sometimes, in fact too often, I just can't resist.
This gal has nearly 200,000 followers. She was commenting on a Charlie Kirk post — he has 2.9 million followers — that noted the cost of Columbia University's tuition ($89,000) and then unconditionally declared that "College is a scam." That's pretty typical of Charlie's probing analyses of whatever he's hating on any given day. Before posting her thoughtful agreement with Kirk, Ms. Sassafrass84 (her IQ, maybe?) reposted another tweeter's remark that all protesters shouting "Death to America" will have their student loan debt forgiven by the Biden administration. I assume that's what passes for wit among these sad, pathetic human beings, but for all I know the poster might have been serious.
ABSOLUTELY! Down with colleges and universities! Which would also mean down with doctors, engineers, the underpaid educators who try to teach the spawned little neoNazi brats to read ...
— P.M. Carpenter (@CarpenterPM) April 23, 2024
I find this herd mentality, as it's commonly known, endlessly fascinating and therefore irresistible, which is to say, I'm positively compelled to respond. I'm quite aware that my responses will have no positive effect in return; the herd brooks no dissent, although in my experience it does so silently. By that I mean I never get a rise from any of these imbeciles, and that puzzles me.
These are the loudest, most opinionated, agitated and argumentative crackpots on earth, and yet — do they denounce me as the real crackpot? No. Never. This is partly responsible for my lack of resistance when it comes responding. Surely, I keep thinking, surely someday at least one of them will explode and plaster me with all manner of invective. Is that too much to ask? Do I stand alone in unworthiness of their lib ownership?
What I seek from this crowd is some clue as to what constitutes Trump Derangement Syndrome, according to their diagnostic manual of political disorders. I should note that from time to time I do receive that as a response — "You have TDS" — although it's not really a response; just a quick, lazy comeback. What symptoms of TDS do I display? This, I wish to know. Is it my citation of some fact? Is it bloody obvious logic? Mere revulsion at their idol's contemptible behavior? What, precisely, defines TDS? I await answers, indeed I beg for answers, hence my compulsive comments to their comments.
But I'm also intrigued by the kind of mind that spews the asinine garbage these people spew. "College is a scam" — period. "Absolutely" — period. What could possibly possess the first poster to declare such an idiocy and the second poster to instantly affirm? This I think is the greater part of my addiction. I genuinely wish to know the mental workings, or rather malfunctions and integrated dysfunctions, of such psyches. I can't even begin to put myself in their place, that generally being a good place to start. I'm simply clueless, I've not the faintest idea of the whys and wherefores behind such visceral abnormalities.
And so I keep responding to them, hoping that someday I'm enlightened about their dark musings, their evidently concealed conceptions of TDS, and the whirling propellants in their grey matter — the causations, that is, of their garbage spewing. Mine is a courageous expedition — don't you think? — for their online territory is perilous. There, it seems to me, madness reigns. And I'm only trusting it's not contagious.