Bluesky posts on its X account to remind us of its existence and admit that it has been what its whole point was not to be: toxic.

If you haven't checked us out in a while, we've been busy. Doing work to make conversations less toxic and more civil, and adding new ways to help you find your friends on Bluesky. See what you've been missing: https://t.co/exCdOOXRC1

— Bluesky (@bluesky) March 4, 2026

"When a spectator shouted that banning clapping was 'undemocratic,' the mayor countered that 'clapping for some and not all is not democratic'..."

"... and that 'we have to allow for people to feel safe to say what they feel.' The mayor’s attempt at enforcing her idea of civility only prompted more shouting, after which she said: 'I’m not going to argue. If I hear any more clapping or disruption from the crowd, I will have to unfortunately have you all removed.' 'Do it now! Do it to me!' David Reed, 77, a Takoma Park resident, yelled, according to the city’s video recording of the meeting. More applause followed. 'You’re not the dictator of the council!' Paul Huebner, 75, a retired project manager, shouted. 'This is outrageous!'... The kerfuffle prompted a robust discussion among the lawmakers about civility and First Amendment rights that spilled into subsequent meetings and online discussions over the next two weeks...."

From "A mayor ordered no clapping at a city meeting. Applause did not follow. The Takoma Park, Maryland, mayor’s order that people not clap during a public meeting led to insults and even a poll" (WaPo).

It's funny that the mayor used the word "democratic" to refer to responding to every person and every idea equally. It strikes me as the very opposite of democracy. In democracy, people choose, we express favoritism, and the person that gets the most support obtains power to impose it on others.

"When did we all decide that sweats and pajama pants were the appropriate attire for air travel?"

"What incentive do we have in such a demoralizing environment?"

Trump would like to be even more effusive in his female impersonation.

Strip away the context and it's fun for all:

Challenged on his statement about Rob Reiner, Trump explained, "Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all.... I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any way, shape, or form."

Let’s be clear about something.

Trump wrote this morning that what happened to Rob Reiner and his wife Michele was a very sad thing and may they rest in peace.

He didn’t celebrate his death.

He did say how he felt about the man who hated him with every ounce of his being… pic.twitter.com/wdSuwjWDQr

— RealAF Patriot (@RealAF_Patriot) December 15, 2025

The full quote: "Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned. He said — he knew it was false, in fact it’s the exact opposite — that I was a friend of Russia, controlled by Russia. The Russia hoax — he was one of the people behind it. I think he hurt himself, career-wise. He became like a deranged person. Trump derangement syndrome. So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any way, shape, or form. I thought he was very bad for our country."

Compare that to his earlier statement, and you'll see that a big difference is the omission of a reverent acknowledgment of the profundity of death. The original statement begins and ends with what we would expect from a decent and conventional reaction: "A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood.... May Rob and Michele rest in peace!" It's the stuff in the middle that was the problem. Notice the multiple elements to this filling. I'll color code them:

"Republicans and Democrats are now nearly unanimous in believing the other party has gone too far with its rhetoric and are much more likely to think this than in 2011."

"Ninety-four percent of Democrats, compared with 74% in 2011, now say Republicans and their supporters have gone too far, and 93% of Republicans (vs. 63% in 2011) say the same about Democrats and their supporters. In contrast, partisans are disinclined to believe their own party has gone too far with its rhetoric and are no more likely now than in 2011 to hold this view. Today, 36% of Republicans believe the GOP and its supporters’ rhetoric has gone too far, compared with 32% in 2011. And Democrats are less likely now (28%) than in 2011 (45%) to say their party’s rhetoric has been too inflammatory."

From "More Americans Say Political Rhetoric Has Gone Too Far/69% say Republicans', 60% say Democrats' inflammatory criticism of opponents has gone too far" (Gallup).

"Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person?"

Trump just made this reporter reevaluate her life 😂

Q: "Why do you blame the Biden Admin?"

Trump: "Because they let them in. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? And you're just asking questions because you're a stupid person!" 💀 pic.twitter.com/s97shKW0yd

— Sara Rose 🇺🇸🌹 (@saras76) November 28, 2025

"Why do you blame the Biden Admin?"/"Because they let them in. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? And you're just asking questions because you're a stupid person!"

Presented for your contemplation, not to indicate my approval (or disapproval!).

***

I'm giving this my "civility bullshit" tag because the topic of "civility bullshit" is in play. That is, Trump doesn't fall for civility bullshit. You can't persuade him to be civil because he (correctly) observes that the other side will not be civil toward him and he will not unilaterally disarm. I think his incivility invariably — or almost invariably — comes only after someone has shown incivility toward him. 

These are all things the President of the United States posted on social media 8 hours ago.

pic.twitter.com/na2ivYVFoT

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2025

Is it still hard to believe that the President of the United States posts things like this? He is taunting. He's giving material that will be snapped up and used to say (once again) that he's a racist. And — that last one — that he is grandiose. But this is what we have now. We (collectively) voted for it. He's not bland. And it is — all of it — comedy. He's keeping our spirits up. Some of us have a good spirit about it. They're laughing — maybe even laughing off the budget crisis. Others of us have inflamed spirits, angry spirits. And according to Trump, they come from hell. They've been giving him hell for years. He's entitled to laugh at them. I'd prefer more dignity, but that's more Trump 45, and what did that get him?

"Calling for civility is about exerting power. It is a way of reminding the powerless that they exist at the will of those in power and should act accordingly."

"It is a demand for control. Civility is wielded as a cudgel to further clarify the differences between 'us' and 'them.' It is the demand of people with thin skin who don’t want their delicate egos and impoverished ideas challenged. And it is a tool of fearful leaders, clinging to power with desperate, sweaty hands, thrilled at the ways they are forcing people, corporations and even other nations to bend to their will but terrified at what will happen when it all slips away.... I keep wondering when we will reach a cultural breaking point, when finally, the Trump administration will go far enough to shove us out of the comforts of our day-to-day lives.... The onus is on all of us to reject the fantasy of civility in favor of repair. This country is broken, but that need not be permanent."

Writes Roxane Gay, in "Civility Is a Fantasy" (NYT)(gift link).

"Every other recent president has said that he saw his role as transcending partisanship at least some of the time, to serve as leader of all Americans..."

"... even those who disagreed with him. George H.W. Bush talked of ushering in a 'kinder and gentler nation.' Mr. Clinton vowed to be the 'repairer of the breach.' The younger Mr. Bush spoke of being 'a uniter, not a divider.' Barack Obama rejected the idea of a red America and blue America, saying there was only 'the United States of America.' Joseph R. Biden Jr. called for ending 'this uncivil war.' None of them succeeded at achieving such lofty aspirations, and each of them to different degrees played the politics of division at times. Politics, after all, is about division — debating big ideas vigorously until one side wins an election or carries the vote in Congress. But none of them practiced the politics of division as ferociously and consistently as Mr. Trump...."

From "In an Era of Deep Polarization, Unity Is Not Trump’s Mission/President Trump does not subscribe to the traditional notion of being president for all Americans" by Peter Baker, in the NYT.

Who is taking an accurate measure of the consistency and ferocity of the divisiveness of the various Presidents?

My prompt to ChatGPT: "What are the most ferociously divisive things Presidents have said in all of American history? Give me a top 10, with just the quotes, not the explanations."

The list [NOTE: I did not verify the accuracy of these quotes. What follows is with ChatGPT gave me and the entire thing could be hallucination. Proceed with care!]

"There was a time last summer when the Democratic Party was cool."

"Kamala Harris had just stepped in as the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in the waning days of Brat summer. She went on the popular podcast 'Call Her Daddy.' Tim Walz’s outdoorsy drip led to a Chappell Roan-inspired camo trucker hat. The memes were flowing, and the party’s mood was high...."

That's the beginning of a NYT article called "What Is 'Dark Woke'? Democrats are trying out a new attitude. It’s provocative, edgy and perilously toeing the line of not being too offensive." The author is Jack Crosbie.

How painfully embarrassing to remember things that were painfully embarrassing at the time. But the media tried to palm it off as "cool" last summer... back when they were pretending America would vicariously appreciate Kamala's "joy." I'd have thought no one would be so cruel as to bring up "Brat summer" again. It was so insanely delusional. And that is not cool. 

But let's keep reading.

With Donald J. Trump back in the White House.... so-called masculine energy... seems like the dominant [culture].... As liberals try to get their groove back...

Ugh. 

... some party insiders say Democratic politicians have been encouraged to embrace a new form of combative rhetoric... “Dark woke.”

Is this like "Dark Brandon"? Why, yes it is: 

"Just hours after President Trump called for the impeachment of a judge who sought to pause the removal of more than 200 migrants to El Salvador, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued a rare public statement."

"'For more than two centuries,' the chief justice said, 'it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.' Mr. Trump had called the judge, James E. Boasberg, a 'Radical Left Lunatic' in a social media post and said he should be impeached."

Writes Adam Liptak, at the NYT.

Liptak was reminded of something the Chief said in 2018, "after Mr. Trump called a judge who had ruled against his administration’s asylum policy 'an Obama judge'": "We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.... What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for."

Of course, that doesn't stop the NYT from telling us the name of the President who appointed the federal judges whose names arise in the news.

"Elon Musk has announced an upcoming algorithm update for X, formerly known as Twitter, intended to promote more informative and entertaining content while reducing 'negativity"

"This change aims to enhance user experience by focusing on 'unregretted user-seconds,' where engagement is meaningful rather than just extensive. The update follows public discussions about how content visibility impacts free speech and platform dynamics, with some users and commentators expressing concerns over potential censorship or the stifling of diverse viewpoints."

That's what I'm reading at X in what is billed as "a summary of posts on X and may evolve over time. Grok can make mistakes, verify its outputs."

If you go to that link at a different time, will you see a different summary? Maybe! But trust me. What you see there is what I just copied, and you can see the time stamp on this post.

I can see I need to learn the term "unregretted user-seconds"! How does the machine know about regret?! Of course, I ask the machine for help. Oh! The answer is so different from my guess! I thought "user-seconds" might be the number of times users seconded a post — expressed agreement with it — by liking it or retweeting it. And I thought these reactions could be counted as "unregretted" if they were not subsequently deleted. But I see that "seconds" refers to the unit of time:

"Imagine you are about to have a political argument with a close friend or family member. You are on opposing sides of the left-right rift...."

"Doesn’t it sometimes feel that it would be simpler if you each just brought over a small TV and left it running in the kitchen, tuned to your respective network, while the two of you went into the yard and talked about something about which you possess some original knowledge? Once you’re out there, talking like that, won’t it be nice to feel your pre-formed 'political' carapaces drop away? And won’t it be discouraging and alarming when, as soon as one of you slips up and utters a triggering word or phrase ('immigrant' or 'Trump' or 'politically correct' or 'eating cats and dogs,' for example), you veer back into your canned 'political' jargon, like actors suddenly aware that the scripts you’ve been given must, at all costs, be honored?"

Writes George Saunders, in "Five Thought Experiments Concerning the Underlying Disease/Our civic wells are poisoned. Why?" (The New Yorker).

Saunders is a fine writer, but I'll be cruelly neutral and give him the "civility bullshit" tag he deserves. If Kamala Harris had won, would he be urging us to abandon political speech and get back to the little life of the backyard about which we possess "original knowledge"?

Bill Maher explains to Democrats that they are giving people "the ick."

"And multiple speakers delighted the crowd by alluding to the fabricated viral claim that Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, wrote in his memoir about having sex with furniture."

"'I wouldn’t trust them to move my couch,' Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said of the GOP ticket on the final night. 'I know a couch commando when I see one,' Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said minutes later. The jabs were just part of a more expansive case against Trump that Democrats laid out over four nights in Chicago. But they reflected a broader shift in tone for Democrats toward a no-holds-barred kind of rhetorical warfare many in the party once eschewed. Eight years after the Philadelphia convention cheered Michelle Obama’s famous line 'When they go low, we go high' — and with Trump still waging a campaign full of personal insults and baseless accusations... some Democrats said they are tired of being polite...."

From "Democrats once strove to ‘go high’ against Trump. Not anymore. This year’s convention culminated recent efforts to needle Trump on topics known to strike a nerve in the former president, with some Democrats saying they are tired of being polite" (WaPo)(free-access link).

This gets my "civility bullshit" tag, which in this case reflects my belief that the old "When they go low, we go high" was just a strategy choice, to be abandoned when it didn't seem effective... or when the low material is tantalizing enough, like that well-upholstered couch that seems be calling out to you.

"Going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanizing others, we just become part of the ugly noise that’s drowning out everything else. We degrade ourselves. We degrade the very causes for which we fight."

Said Michelle Obama, at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

Quoted in "Walz’s 'couch' quip, and Democrats’ growing comfort in going low/The Democratic VP nominee’s apparent reference to a lewd, fake internet story reflects a more bare-knuckle campaign against a GOP presidential nominee who has spent years plumbing new depths." That's an essay by Aaron Blake, at WaPo.

It gets my "civility bullshit" tag, because civility has been advocated in the past, and Democrats are in a phase where they see an entitlement to reject it.

This also gets my "masturbation" tag. Who would have predicted that Democrats would lean heavily into masturbation shaming? It's 30 years since Bill Clinton fired Jocelyn Elders!

"They say something happened to me when I got shot, I became nice. If you don’t mind, I’m not going to be nice, is that okay?"

Said Donald Trump.

Quoted in "'Not going to be nice': Trump, Harris trade sharp attacks as 2024 race resets/The competing appearances are a chance for each candidate to frame the stakes of the race as it plunges into uncharted territory" (WaPo).

"This CNN anchor is saying Trump sent a bad message by saying fight fight fight... So the President who had just been shot was sending a divisive message?"

"Can you imagine these people? The president who had just been shot was at fault for the divisiveness, having just been shot. The guy who got shot, who almost died, who a bullet missed his head by, you know centimeters, I mean... it's crazy.... and somebody's on CNN going: Actually, we felt the message was a bit divisive. We're actually disappointed in the wording. We don't love the wording of that. I wish he had kind of workshopped that a bit as he was being bloodily dragged off the stage by the Secret Service. I wish he had kind of — I don't know— taken people's temperature more. We're trying to ramp it down.... Was that the Secret Service trying to ramp it down when there's nobody on the fucking roof? Is that what they were trying to do? Trying to ramp it down a week ago Biden goes: Let's put him in the bullseye?..."

Tim Dillon ridicules the civility bullshit:

Garnering conspiracy theories... and views.

I'm reading "Misinformation spreads swiftly in hours after Trump rally shooting/Conspiracy theories swell around false flags, Deep State, Biden and the Secret Service, filling the information vacuum as consumers choose their own reality" (WaPo)

Minutes after shots were fired, right-wing social media influencers and elected Republicans began insinuating that powerful figures were responsible, directly or indirectly, for the attempt. Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) posted to X that “Joe Biden sent the orders,” garnering over 4 million views, and later called for Biden to face charges for “inciting an assassination.” 

More broadly on social media, a TikTok user who posts under the handle @theoldermillenial.1 told his 1.2 million followers, “I guess because the court cases weren’t going so well, they decided to try a different avenue. Guys, don’t forget, this is what the left is capable of.”.... 

[M]isinformation experts urged the public not to share unconfirmed information online.... But far-right channels on encrypted platforms were abuzz with a mixture of shock, rage and conspiracy theories. Triumphant slogans (“You missed!”) and calls for civil war captioned the instantly totemic image of a bloodied but defiant Trump raising a fist with the flag in the background. Without any clear word from authorities on suspects or motives, MAGA extremists instantly embraced the idea of a politically motivated assassination attempt. Disinformation swirled as trolls looked for easy clicks by sharing uncorroborated footage and information about people they claimed to be the assailant.

This makes it sound as though people were just exploiting the opportunity to draw traffic to their accounts, but it is the completely natural and uncontrollable need to communicate about an unfolding event. We're supposed to wait for "clear word from authorities"? We're still waiting for clear word from authorities about the JFK assassination!