Solheim – debate me IRL

Simple but Not Easy

A short story: Last week, I held an open discussion with the Boston College Young Republicans. The students, who are also my constituents, were thoughtful and engaging. We covered a lot of ground – debt & taxation, fitness standards for women in the military, social media regulation & free speech, and more. It was democracy, IRL (In real life).

I joined Plain English with Derek Thompson to discuss my campaign against social media corporations, other miners and merchants of dopamine, and their detrimental impact on our civil society. You can listen to the full interview here.

Then the keyboard warriors took over. MAGA commentators & the College Republicans of America attacked these BC students online as “weak,” “traitors,” and “cowards.” The BC Republicans’ blasphemy was two-fold. They hosted me. And – they denounced a speech by another invited guest earlier that week, Nick Solheim. He is an ultra-MAGA provocateur who, according to the Boston Globe, told BC Republicans:

“Live in recognition of the fact that they will kill you and everybody that you love to get what they want — open borders, sex changes for minors, so-called gay marriages, health care for illegal immigrants, and so on…”

[by contrast], “we don’t assassinate, attack indiscriminately, or violate our enemy, and for a simple reason. As Tucker Carlson once said, ‘That’s not how white men fight.’”

For the double sin of criticizing this MAGA extremist and then debating a Democrat, College Republicans of America have now listed the BC Republicans as an “Unwelcome Organization” and revoked their charter. They are harassing the BC Republicans’ president online. MAGA wallowing in cancel culture and online outrage. Democrats should be the party of belonging and IRL.

My comments to the Boston Globe:

[Auchincloss] blamed social media for enabling “hyperventilating meanness” and suggested the solution to combating it is straightforward: “The answer is, people have to touch grass,” he said — that is, get off their screens.

“When you engage with people in real life, as I did with these students, what you find is there is a deep reservoir of common sense and decency amongst an exhausted majority of Americans,” [Auchincloss] said, adding that he’d gladly debate Solheim in person. “That’s actually what deliberative democracy looks like. That’s actually how we heal the country.”

I doubt Solheim will take me up on the offer to debate IRL. I’ve been to politics and I’ve been to war. I’ve found that people who talk about politics as though it’s a war are generally the least willing to face the other side in person. But – Nick, if you want to log off, touch grass, and show up, I’m ready to demonstrate to students how Americans are meant to debate.