A left-wing political cartoonist is facing criticism, and rightly so, for mocking Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s 10-year-old-daughter, Liza, in a cartoon published this past weekend. The cartoonist, Chris Britt, depicted the girl praying, “Dear God, please forgive my angry, lying, alcoholic father for sexually assaulting Dr. [Christine] Ford.” The context of the illustration is [ Read More ]
The past decade in American politics and public life has felt like the combination of a war, a carnival, and a Hollywood movie. We’ve experienced not only the injustices pointed out by populists, such as the corruption of Wall Street bankers whose irresponsibility crashed our economy and devastated innumerable ordinary citizens, and the overbearing, self-serving, [ Read More ]
We live in a volatile age. The last decade of American politics has proved to be dysfunctional, rancorous, and polarizing. Together, we have experienced the increasing disintegration of both major political parties, the deep ideological and cultural divisions revealed by the 2016 election cycle, the inability of Congress to carry a sustained or constructive debate [ Read More ]
The past year in American politics has put on full display the social, cultural, and political breakdown we are experiencing in the United States. Evangelicals, we need to find a way to make things right again, and we can’t count on talk show hosts or politicians to do this. It’s up to us—ordinary citizens of [ Read More ]
If we were to update Dante’s Divine Comedy for the 21st century, we might revise it so that persons in the inner circle of hell would be forced to spend their days reading and interacting with the comment chains of national news outlets, popular websites, famous YouTube videos, and celebrity Twitter accounts. In other words, humanity would be punished by having to interact with internet Trolls.
What is an internet troll?
An internet troll is a person who aims to start arguments and upset or humiliate people by posting accusatory, inflammatory, or off-topic messages in online comment chains or chatrooms. Trolls who have mastered the dark art of trollery will exhibit a number of skills, including: selective outrage; obstinate quibbles over petty details; the refusal to listen to or sympathize with interlocutors, purportedly on principle but mainly to distort or hijack the conversation; and the seizing of any opening to practice these dark arts from the safety of his own basement.
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Following his victory in the Indiana primary, Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for president of the United States. In upcoming days, many of us in the evangelical community will be tempted to be despondent, maybe even to detach ourselves from the political process out of a feeling of helplessness. And [ Read More ]