At the height of the Charlie Kirk aftermath — when people were arguing over the “ideology” of a deeply troubled, video game-obsessed 22 year-old — I logged off. I put my phone down for a weekend and took my son to the zoo. I’m not supposed to do that; I’m a political comedy writer, I make my living writing about stuff, not by tuning out. In order to keep my son stuffed with popcorn and looking at monkeys — his preferred state of being — I need to engage.
But it’s pretty clear that engagement is often unhealthy. The evidence that social media is bad for our brains is about as robust as the evidence that crystal meth is bad for our teeth. Cable news continues to be a sea of retarded sludge fished straight from Satan’s asshole. Podcasts have literally amplified the voices of know-nothings and money-chasing nihilists — who knew there was such a huge market for dudes with weird haircuts full of hot takes about World War II? Many of the places where our political dialogue occurs are bad places to hang out; the weekend I spent with literal animals was my best weekend of 2025.
And it seems like more and more, sane people are saying “fuck this” and disengaging from politics. “Activist” increasingly means “fanatic who makes a Wahhabist cleric look like a weak-kneed centrist”. Each party’s base is made up of uncompromising zealots who serve as gatekeepers for acceptable thoughts and acceptable candidates. Normies show up to vote, but the conversations and decisions that precede election day are dominated by true believers. Which makes findings like this completely unsurprising: