The Most Active Threads Since Friday

The most active thread over the weekend will probably come as no surprise to anyone. Titled, "Shots fired at Trump rally", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, this thread reached nearly 200 pages and well over 2600 posts since the attempted assassination of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump on Saturday evening. The first few pages were devoted to simply posting details — a few of them vaguely correct — about what had happened. But soon the thread devolved to little more than finger-pointing. Trump supporters in the thread were sure that the shooter was a liberal motivated by Democratic rhetoric. Their posts were filled with anger with many insinuating that any DCUMer who didn't share their rage was essentially personally responsible for the attempt on Trump's life. For their part, many of the liberals insisted that Trump's own often violent words that consistently inflamed his supporters had come home to roost. When the the shooter was identified and records showed that at 17 years of age he had made a $15 donation to a progressive organization and then, months later, had registered as a Republican, both sides were given ammunition to claim he belonged to the other side. The debate about this was interminable with posters intent on making the most of his party affiliation and others determined that no mention of his registration would go unanswered. The responses pointing out the shooter's $15 contribution were often accompanied by a graphic that was posted so many times that I fear it may be permanently burned into my retinas. A similar never-ending dispute was over whether Trump had been wounded by a bullet or fragments of glass. It is not clear to me why this is even an important distinction, let alone one worth arguing about for two days. Trump-supporting posters kept returning to their allegation that the shooter had been inspired by accusations and claims made by Democrats, including President Joe Biden. It is interesting that a party that once rallied around a profane statement concerning what liberals should do with their feelings has transformed into a fragile collection of snowflakes. Calling Trump a threat to democracy had put his life in danger, posters claimed. While Trump often promotes violence from the stage of his rallies, MAGA posters had to dig deep to find words with which to implicate Biden. The best that they could do was a statement that Biden had made privately during a phone conversation with party financial donors. He said that he was done talking about the debate that that Trump should be put in the bullseye. He then went on to discuss Trump policies that he planned to criticize more forcefully. The context of this clearly has nothing to do with violence, but that didn't stop Trump supporters who interpreted this as a direct order to shoot Trump. The shooting has created an uneven balance in the rhetoric battle. Trump's MAGA cult, built on resentment and anger, will hardly be satisfied with a new humbled and emphatic Trump who is interested in lowering the temperature and creating unity — if such a thing were even a possibility. Therefore, Trump's inflammatory words will likely continue. Democrats, on the other hand, have been brow-beaten to the point where they will have to be practically apologetic with any criticism of Trump. As one poster in the thread asked, "what if you think that Trump is a threat to democracy?". MAGAs have never considered that to be legitimate criticism and now they claim that it is a provocation to murder. Therefore, while the violent rhetoric that is common among Trump and his supporters will likely continue, Democrats will only be allowed to respond with expressions of respect and desires of unity with Trump.

The next two most active threads were ones that I've already discussed and will skip today. After those was a thread posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. Titled, "Vent: Invited to 4 child-free weddings this summer", the original poster says that she has been attending weddings for 20 years and only once had been invited to a child-free wedding. Now she has received invitations to four different weddings with that restriction. She considers prohibiting children to be off-putting and says that she would rather not be invited at all. Child-free weddings are a recurring topic in the forum and I have previously discussed simliar threads that were among the most active. This one is not substantively different than the previous threads. Basically, anger about child-free weddings correlates with the difficulty of finding childcare. Those without young children obviously are not upset at all and even likely to support the concept. Those who have young children but can find care for them easily are also likely not to have strong feelings about not allowing children. But for those who struggle to find accommodations for their children, such weddings can be a challenge and these posters, like the original poster, are often very unhappy about it. The original poster says that she is venting and, as such, probably doesn't expect much in the way of responses. As for the advice from other posters, there is not a lot that they can offer. The obvious course of action is to decline the invitation. Some posters say that they are actually happy to have a reason not to attend. The other suggestion is to arrange childcare and there are various ideas about how this might be accomplished. There are downsides to both suggestions and, being obvious, the original poster would have already considered them. The frustration for those like the original poster is not that there are no solutions, but that none of the solutions are good. Discussion also turns to the reasons that couples have child-free weddings. It is not simply because they don't like children or are concerned about disruptions that children might cause — though both of these are stated as justifications — but that children add to the number of meals that must be provided and, therefore, the cost of the wedding and reception. One poster reported that she is actually in a child-free wedding and her daughters are flower girls. Not only is her infant child not invited at all, but the two girls are not invited to the rehearsal dinner or reception. One excuse couples often use to explain why exceptions can't be made for certain kids is that allowing one child would mean that they would have to allow all children and that could be a significant number. But many posters don't think that excuse applies when it comes to children who are actually in the wedding. The one acceptable child-free wedding arrangement that even the staunchest critic seems to find acceptable is one in which the the wedding couple arranges childcare, included babysitters, food, and entertainment.

Next was a thread that I am not sure belongs in this blog post anymore. The thread was titled, "What have you completely changed your mind about?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. I have a general dislike for this type of thread because they open the door to a lot of negativity and threads like this tend be mostly criticism of things the posters don't like. My worst fears came true in this case. Things that posters said that they had changed their mind about were gay marriage, trans gender people, and "the left". The common feature of these topics was the trans gender issue. I have thought for some time, and maybe even written it here, that the issue of gender identity has completely broken the brains of many people. Individuals who claim to have been progressives and supported a range of leftist political positions are now aligning themselves with former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump, all because they are upset that someone who was identified as one gender at birth now living as another gender. Transphobia is really the gateway drug that leads some from the left to the right. As such, it is no surprise that some posters in this thread have made that journey. The problem, however, is that this thread is in the off-topic forum, not the political forum. We have a political forum and posters who want to discuss politics can do so there, but many posters in the off-topic forum are participating in that forum as an escape from politics. Therefore, I removed the posts dealing with "the left", gay marriage, and trans gender topics. That shortened the thread by 5 pages and dropped it from the list of most active threads. There are still posts about abortion and religion which arguably don't belong in this thread. As for other posts that I didn't remove, they were at least in the ballpark of the thread's intention. The two things that the original poster changed her mind about were men paying for dates — she used to believe that was required but is now supportive of splitting the cost or taking turns paying — and "gangsta" rap, which she used to like but now disagrees with and believes does a disservice to its audience. Other posters have changed their minds about things such as yogurt, dogs, grapefruit juice, and homelessness. Despite my previously-conceived bias against this thread, there are some interesting posts so it is not quite the disaster that I expected. At least after my deletions.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Beauty and Fashion" forum. Titled, "BRF Fashion Thread", the original poster had a very simple goal. She wanted to discuss the fashion of the British Royal Family. She did not want to discuss the weight of any member of the Royal Family or entertain fights between fans of Kate, the Princess of Wales, and fans of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. She also didn't want posters to report huge numbers of posts. Basically, those responding failed in almost all regards. To be sure, a number of posters went along with the guidelines and there was plenty of discussion about the British Royal Family's fashion. The thread reached 28 pages before I locked it in order to put it out of my misery. The problem with this thread, indeed with every thread involving the British Royal Family, is that there are posters who simply lack that capacity to have a normal discussion about Kate and Meghan. Even before this weekend it took a tremendous amount of moderation to keep this thread on track. I've never considered what I calculate the cost/benefit of British Royal Family threads to be worthwhile. The cost, in terms of time and effort these threads require, is significant. The benefit, from my point of view, is practically zero. There is nothing that I personally enjoy about these threads. Yes, they bring in some ad revenue, but that can't begin to offset the amount of my time that they require. What caused this thread to be among the weekend's most active was mostly a debate about Meghan. A fan of hers started posting pictures of her to highlight her fashion choices. Posters who are not fans of the Duchess suggested that these posts were off-topic because the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are no longer working members of the Royal Family. That is true, but their family relationships, as well as their titles, remain. As such, other posters argued in favor of including Meghan. But, a Megan superfan went further and filled the pages with Megan's photos. This caused even more consternation and not a small number of reports. Another poster started posting insults of other posters which also got reported. Soon it seemed that almost every post was generating a report for one reason or another. But then former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump was nearly assassinated. Suddenly not only me, but my wife Maria and one of our sons were devoting ourselves fulltime to dealing with the impact of that on DCUM. We were being flooded by reports and the BRF reports, which on a normal day we might be able to contort into a sort of joke, had become an unnecessary hindrance. Among the posts that were reported in the shooting thread were several calling me a "kike". For the education of that poster, I am not Jewish. In contrast, the reports of posts in this thread were more along the lines of "This poster has been derailing the thread yet again with her obsession over Meghan Markle. She picks fights in all of her posts." Both are legitimate reports, but I am obviously much more concerned with the former. Not only because it insulted me personally — something about which I actually have little concern — but because the "k-word" is offensive to many others and as long as it remains gives the impression that DCUM condones anti-Semitism. In these circumstances, I no longer had patience for the BRF Fashion reports and decided to lock the thread.