The numbers just don’t add up.

The Democratic party has been mired in toothless politics for quite a while, and have since lost all levels of federal government, the supreme court, and any sort of say in the direction of this country. When some semblance of political fortitude and real progression appeared to gain traction in 2016, the party went with their established member, who subsequently lost (granted, to a demagogue playing off of xenophobic hysteria amongst many other things.) Now, as idealists are starting to topple the staid old-guard, we see many in the party, who by all rights should be considered “center” dig and protest. Out comes the cries against “radicals” and socialism, a pleading to to maintain progression to a minimal as that most assuredly will alienate Americans™ everywhere—as if the democratic party hasn’t already made swift work of that. Or, perhaps that isn’t the case? Over the last few months, Trump’s popularity in important states which he carried in the midwest has middled or flat out gone under, with the popularity of the Democratic party ticking up. But alas, perhaps we should ignore the direction that the party is naturally headed, and instead insist that it keeps on keeping on, relying on droll platitudes and promises for minutia that hardly affects those in need the most, because that has worked so well over the past decade+.

“A lot of big, weird news broke in July; Trump’s trade wars, the Helsinki press conference, or the family-separation fiasco could all theoretically explain Team Blue’s polling boost. Regardless, it remains the case that, over the past month, the Democratic Party became simultaneously more closely associated with “socialism” and more popular.”

Another reminder that you have no privacy.

If, like me and countless others, you have drunkenly climbed into the backseat of an uber driven by some anonymous entity, while sharing anything and everything with a friend and out into that void, you most likely assumed those slurred and divulged secrets would stay in that mood-lit car, dying out the second you left the vehicle. In that faith, you are mistaken. We have entered the age of streaming, and while the idea of government surveillance is far too nebulous to reliably worry about, and your run-ins with advertisers tracking your every click is in the form of you purchasing more, it seemed the most you had to worry about was a picture shared here and there, days or weeks after the fact, perhaps going viral. Now, with the rise of livestreaming platforms Twitch and Youtube, which started out gaming centric but have recently embraced IRL (In Real Life) streaming, driven mostly by divisive and disruptive personalities, who walk, or in this case pilot their uber around, streaming every unedited minute to often times thousands of watchers, things are beginning to get messy. With livestreaming, faces are not (can not be) blurred out, names and details are divulged with no filter, and your being is actively critiqued, rated and attacked. These personalities are usually beholden to their fanbases (which they actively built up and pandered to), driving them to push the boundary at every chance, leading to bomb threats, targeted harassment long after the streamer moves on and more. We have entered a dangerous time when you unknowingly release your information, complete with video, to hordes of anonymous personalities that can be set off at the flick of a switch.

“But Gargac does not acknowledge that the community he created comes at the expense of real people. People who feel violated by the gaze of a hidden online audience. People who don’t want their personal details divulged on the internet.”

Add. More. Women. Writers.

Who didn’t get a good kick out of watching, on Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Is America?, state representatives and lobby leaders humiliate themselves and create a spectacle out what we already knew—but that lurked just under a flimsy veneer. We got to watch those in power sell themselves out (despite their protests after the fact of manipulation) and leave no doubt that they are shills for their own rhetoric, willing to push guns to infants, and cackling at the thought of a peaceful muslim man being shot while praying. Unfortunately, this schtick of spectacle doesn’t work when applied those not in power, to the perfectly normal or abnormal. What works to cut down white men in power who abuse that power, feels exploitive when it’s applied at the same time to those who wield no power, who are merely an art gallerist or a typical reality star looking for fame. There will never cease to be disappointment when people hang on to this notion of being “critical to both sides” as they conflate those pushing gun narratives and controlling a government that is separating families, pining for war and destroying the middle class while stepping on the lower class, with the silly art world or vapid celebrity. It should come as no surprise then, that Cohen’s show is written exclusively by men, and that these attacks on those out of power, are against women. Because what could be the most masculine way to show the balance of power than attacking in the same manner white men in control of the government and the very women those men relentlessly attack.

“It is hard not to think that the show, which purports to reveal America’s inner character, is hamstrung by the limited range of people behind the scenes, both selecting its targets and weighing in on the optics of Cohen’s exploits.”

You’re either choosing the marginalized or hate speech. There’s no middle ground.

Out of all the organizations and mouthpieces to rally behind, why do these tech companies cling so desperately to a man that has continually pushed offensive conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, attack victims, and push dangerous and regressive narratives? Alex Jones and InfoWars has received multiple strikes for pushing hate speech and harassment, but due to Youtube’s unflinching and illogical strike system, and Mark Zuckerberg’s stuttering defence of Holocaust deniers has left Jones to his own (albeit with occasional video removals) to spread the hatred and flat out false information to anyone (even children, on accident). It’s so tired the way people and companies push out (by way of non-action) hateful, certifiably false and downright harmful speech in the name of the first amendment. Please, get it through your patriotism that absolute free speech is a farce, some speech will always push out others, hate will drive others away, it will make them scared to speak themselves in the face of harassment and dehumanization. You will have to make a stand, no matter how much you may wilt at the possibility. You will either put hate speech on a pedestal above marginalized communities, or you will decide that speech will not be tolerated, and show some semblance of a spine.

“Once a ‘mistake’ like this has been made three times in a row, it ceases to be a mistake, especially when it’s ‘harassing children on camera to get more views on YouTube’ or ‘calling the survivors of a mass shooting crisis actors.’”