The Patriot Post® · Don't Violate My Bubble — A Case Study

I have a type-Hollywood friend on the Left Coast, who posted derogatory remarks about AG nominee Jeff Sessions on her social media page. After I challenged her views, and those of her likeminded friends who responded, she removed the post. No doubt she took it down because she did not want her leftist colleagues to know she associated with someone outside their bubble — especially a conservative with constitutionally constructionist views.

Consequently, I sent her a message suggesting she must have missed Barack Obama’s farewell remarks. Unfortunately, I had to slog through his self-congratulatory remarks, and one thing he stated pertained emphatically to ideological bubbles, especially social media echo chambers: “For too many of us, it’s become safer to retreat into our own bubbles … especially our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions. … And increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information, whether it’s true or not, that fits our opinions.”

While it is my friend’s prerogative to post liberal copy/paste political diatribes, and then remove that post when challenged, this was a case study in how liberals — even intelligent liberals like my friend, protect their social media bubbles from the threat of opposing views. I know, you’re thinking that “intelligent liberal” is an oxymoron, but many liberals have plenty of education — it’s just that, in the inimitable words of Ronald Reagan, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

At The Patriot Post, we exercise a policy regarding emotive rants: “Don’t swap spit with a jackass.” But we never miss an opportunity to engage the alternative views of those who articulate them well. By necessity, we cover a very wide range of media and policy sources every day — even the daily policy statements from the American Communist Party. We all have friends who hold a wide range of opinion and perspective, and those whose convictions are more than “feelings,” offer great debate opportunities. But my Left Coast friend demonstrated that she, like most liberals, avoids opposing views like the plague, preferring to be “secure in their bubbles.”

And on that note, I offer a recent a recent Saturday Night Live post, “The Bubble”: