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I don't read as many other weblogs as I used to, mainly because Blogspot no longer has a "Next Blog" button like it used to. And as much as I used to peruse other people's blogs mainly to work out what Blogspot's algorithm was up to, it was something of an informative pastime.

Today, however, I found myself on the ars ludi (the art of games) blog. I'd been looking for the origin of what's called a "West Marches" game in tabletop role-playing circles, and that lead to me to Mr. Robbins' blog, as he is credited as the originator of the format. I found that to be interesting, as Mr. Robbins first posted about his West Marches campaign in 2007, saying that he's first started it about two years prior to that. There had been a similar format of game when I was in college in 1989. The difference is, as always, in the details; there are a lot of ways in which a modern West Marches campaign differs from our old "Adventurer's Guild" games, and many of them are driven by technology. When I was in school, the idea that you would communicate via e-mail with people on the same campus was ludicrous; it was simply too slow and difficult to access a medium for that. So I'm willing to go with the idea that Mr. Robbins invented the format. If for no other reason than this of often how "invention" works. Someone takes an idea that's been floating around, tweaks it, and packages it in such a way that makes it accessible to people. No need to be pedantic about things.

Which brings to the actual point of this post. (Because why place the lede on the surface, when one can bury it a little?) A much more recent, and non-gaming related post on the blog is: "I Don’t Envy Conservatives This Election." The general point was that (movement) Conservatives were in something of a bind, having now President-elect Donald Trump as their nominee. Because while Mr. Trump is a lot of things, a (movement) Conservative is not one of them. He comes across (at least to me and other people I know who lack loyalty to him as a person) as primarily interested in increasing his own personal power, influence and wealth. If championing, or actually implementing, things like small government, reduced taxes, or immigration reform gets that for him, he'll do it. But if increasing the size of government, raising taxes or walking away from changing the immigration system gets that for him, that's what we're in for. Mainly because Mr. Trump is in the enviable position of not actually having to deliver; he can always scapegoat Democrats, "the Deep State" or RINOs when he doesn't get his voter base what they want, and on top of it, can do this without having to admit to be ineffective or "weak" in the process. But I digress. More to the point, there was one comment on the post:

Trump will destroy our democracy?

Good, because we are a constitutional republic, not a democracy.

This is the sort of petulant pedantry that creates much of the rift between Trumpists and everyone else; the attitude that "it's not enough to be right; you have to be a jackass to everyone who doesn't think like you." While I do, on occasion, come across people who think that democracy in ancient Athens must have looked a lot like it does in the United States today (just like I meet people who think the same of slavery), the clear majority of people I know get that the term "democracy" has become inexact, and describes a number of different ways of governing that aren't necessarily (and sometimes, not even remotely) like one another. It's why "Direct Democracy" exists as a term.

It would be one thing if this sort of sneering language policing were actually in the service of clarity, it would still be acting like a jackass, but one could make the point that driving precision in language had benefits. But there's no beneficial precision being sought here. There are no nation-states governed by an expanded Athenian-style that one could actually confuse the governance of the United States with. It's just sneering.

To a degree, I think that Mr. Robbins set himself up for that sort of response. Donald Trump has made himself known for humiliating supplicants, and there are places where the tone of "I Don’t Envy Conservatives This Election" comes across a pleading. And so, to the degree that there is a segment of the population that emulates the President-elect, it's to be expected that "showing weakness" would be punished. But it was also perhaps predictable in the sense that the United States contains mutually-antagonistic and self-absorbed factions who are constantly on the lookout for slights from other factions. And, I can see how certain of Mr. Trump's supporters would feel slighted by Mr. Robbins' comments.

To be sure, this sort of thing is not the norm in everyday American discourse. Most people in the United States are neither bloggers or commenters on blogs. The term "chattering classes," after all, also exists for a reason. The people one sees sniping at one other online do not represent the population as a whole. Even though more and more people seems to be drifting towards thinking they do. I know a few Trump supporters who subscribe to the idea that "you have to be a jackass to everyone who doesn't think like you." But only a few. The problem is that if someone is going to actively reach out and initiate a political discussion with me, guess who it's going to be... The problem with there being a Silent Majority is that they also tend to be an Invisible Majority, drowned out and eclipsed by their more vocal and visible compatriots. The sort of sneering dismissiveness that the constantly online treat one another with colors not only the way that Americans see one another, it also colors the way that people think other people see one another.

The shame of the comment on Mr. Robbins' blog post isn't so much that it's there, but that it's the only word. It drives the sense that the mutually-antagonistic factionalism is the norm, rather than the outlier. And it's that sense that is most likely to make it the norm.