"Blue MAGA" is a brilliant term

> The Cruelty Is the Point

https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-cruelty-is-the-point

QUOTE

When Bluesky launched, I hoped that it would succeed. But the platform has quickly shown that it is hard for any social network to deliver on its promise of being the place for a kinder or gentler discourse. At its best, Bluesky has become a giant progressive echo chamber, with Blue MAGA accounts freely sharing “misinformation” such as the notion that the vote count in the 2024 election was fraudulent because millions of Democratic votes inexplicably went missing. At its worst, it openly revels in violence—so long as that violence can make a claim, however tenuous, to defend or avenge righteous victims.

In accordance with the platform’s policy of moderating content much more aggressively than X has done under Musk, Bluesky’s moderators have been quick to act when users flout the site’s ideological consensus. In the last weeks, both small accounts with few followers and well-known writers with an established audience have seemingly been banned for such trivial “infractions” as suggesting that the Democratic Party leaving X would be a counterproductive form of “purity politics.” And yet, it was on Bluesky that prominent journalists—including, but not limited to, the infamous Taylor Lorenz—openly rejoiced in the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. As long as progressives perceive the victim of a crime to be morally evil, the moderators on Bluesky appear to believe that threatening violence against them is justifiable.