I quit Twitter at the same time I abandoned Parler — right after Big Tech ganged up on that site to kill it off because it was presenting a different voice. I found Twitter to be an angry wasteland of malcontents. Then came the eruption with the acquisition of Twitter by the new Darth Vader (Elon Musk).
We don’t need to analyze that entire saga as the matter has been thrashed over ad nauseum. We do know that one of Twitter’s problems is the angry, low-quality communication. The Twitter people determined anything you (conservatives) might say is “hateful” while allowing anyone to spew any ugly words formerly banned in public communications with impunity.
I subscribe to the Washington Post because I am into self-flagellation. I have always believed in reading people of varying viewpoints to understand what they are thinking and saying instead of going on others’ analyses. As you know, a remarkably successful entrepreneur owns WAPO. The paper does not seem to ever be questioned as to how it addresses issues. WAPO’s “quality” has reached the level Twitter’s nastiness.
Below, I have copied a recent week’s worth of WAPO’S various headlines and sub-headlines in editorials and opinion pieces. The items below include a wide array of their opinion writers and an editorial by the Editorial Board. We know that in a publication like this the headline for a column is not written by the columnist, but it does closely resemble the tone of the column. The sub-headlines do come from the columnist. Obviously, the editorial page editor and the Editor-in–Chief endorse this kind of writing.
The job Kevin McCarthy sold his soul for might elude him
When you’ve lost Tucker Carlson, you know you’ve probably lost the speakership.
By Jennifer Rubin
The Republican primaries have gone off the rails
What happens when some of these clowns get elected?
By Paul Waldman
Michigan Republicans put truth vs. lies on this year’s ballot
Opinion ● Opinion by the Editorial Board
More Sean Hannity texts, more corruption
The bottomless trove of journalistic corruption that is Sean Hannity’s text history.
By Erik Wemple
McCarthy’s lying at the border cements him as the Great Prevaricator
It’s easy to tell when McCarthy is lying: His lips are moving.
By Dana Milbank
A Speaker Kevin McCarthy would mean only more debacles like this one
McCarthy is a dissembler who isn’t shrewd enough to cover his tracks.
By Karen Tumulty
The GOP war on democracy is working. Just look at Ohio
Republicans tell their state supreme court to stuff it, and Trump federal judges give them a thumbs-up.
By Paul Waldman
Amend the Constitution to bar senators from the presidency
The Senate has become a theater of performative behaviors by senators decreasingly interested in legislating, and preoccupied with using social media for self-promotion
By George F. Will
This used to be a serious newspaper. It seems like it has reoriented itself by needing to be in with the nasty Twitter crowd.
George Will’s column is included not because it is nasty, but because it is a stunning waste of print space. Really, why would he write something that is never going to happen?
The headlines are nasty enough, but the sub-headlines are something that should not ever be in a serious publication. Of course, one of the headlines wrote of the war on democracy. Other than that being tiresome, it likewise displays a childish attitude of small thinking. If you don’t support my ideas and my candidates you are destroying the fabric of the country. Instead of suggesting people like Speaker Pelosi stop with the disgusting language, they are echoing it. To get an interview with her?
That is the nicer writing of the headlines sampled above. Dana Milbank used to be a reasoned columnist but went over the edge when Trump was elected. He is calling the minority leader of the House of Representatives a liar, the same elected leader most analysts believe will be the new Speaker of the House come January 2023. Not only does he call him a liar but states in a callow comment that McCarthy lies anytime he speaks. This is sophisticated writing?
As bad as Milbank is he pales in comparison to the unctuous Karen Tumulty. She calls McCarthy a dissembler on which I had to refresh myself. A dissembler is a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold to conceal his or her real thoughts or motives. Otherwise, she is stating McCarthy purposely deceives us, and he is deceiving himself. Though she really has no knowledge of his thinking in this regard, she is just projecting.
By far the most egregious is loathsome Paul Waldman who uses his perch as a WAPO columnist to try and outdo the hatemongers on Twitter. He used this opportunity to call a broad group of Republican candidates clowns. He doesn’t just disagree with them or think their opponents more worthy – they are simply clowns. And his editors published that.
I have not even mentioned one columnist calling all Michigan Republicans liars who are intentionally misleading the residents of their state and the one who says Sean Hannity is corrupt or Minority Leader McCarthy is the newest version of Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, MO. If you read further into the columns, they are filled with hate. A different hate than the kind they characterize on Twitter, but it is hate as indicated by the headlines. Actual hate that radiates from the pages unlike the characterized hate that Twitter frames.
I consider there to be three nationally significant newspapers – the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. I know the WSJ would never allow this kind of writing. I left out the various columns attacking Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
There is nothing that could be said on the new Twitter that is worse than is said on the Washington Post op-ed pages.