When considering how a given political claim is likely to fare once it has traveled outside of the bubble in which it originated, my go-to yardstick is to imagine the reception that it would receive in an average American bar. Given recent events, I have grown tempted to shift the setting of this admirably dependable test elsewhere — say, to the lunchroom of a high-security lunatic asylum.
For people who spend too much time debating politics or surfing the internet — or, heaven forfend, doing both at the same time — engagement with the real world can present something of a shock. I have, on a handful of occasions, found myself trying to convey to one of the more normal members of my family the details of some controversy or other that has flared up on Politics Twitter or in the ideological press and realizing, almost immediately, that I look like a kook. Out come the words — “It all started when @sidewayspolicy told @granulartax that . . .” — and with them comes the stark recognition that nobody outside of a small clique could ever, or should ever, care one whit about what I’m saying. If you’re curious, you can try it yourself. Walk down the road to Al’s, order a drink, and start outlining one of the fashionable notions that has taken the web by storm. I guarantee that, before you’ve so much as finished your first sentence, you will see the first eyebrow go up.
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