Reflection on a Twitter User Politicizing My Poem

"No! He is in the White House."

She called herself “Liberty-Debbie” on Twitter. But there was nothing liberating about her comments.

“No! He is in the White House." She tweeted as a response to a link to my published poem. I was taken aback. How was the poem entitled, “The Monster’s Not in my Closet” political? The poem was about child abuse.

It was July 4th, 2012. That was all I could surmise about her bizarre comment. I had to respond to correct her, as well as to find out how a non-political poem triggered her.

I’ve had strange off-topic comments before. When you self-promote and post links on Twitter, you’re bound to get a few responses. And, I’ve received a few doozies. I write on various topics including education, politics, and history and they usually garnered the compliments or insults from fans and trolls respectively. Rarely, did a poem or short story get such treatment.

Liberty-Debbie was the first to respond to my creative stuff. And, yet, it became evident that she was coming at me from a very ideological slant. This made me wonder; how can somebody totally misinterpret a piece of writing with an obvious theme? The expectation of politics -- and looking forward to battle others with differing views -- is the culprit.

Checking Liberty-Debbie's Profile

For those who deal with politics, you’ve most likely come across people like Liberty-Debbie. Her profile picture was enough to reveal her political affiliation. She wore the classic Stetson cowboy hat adorned with patriotic colors. In addition she brandished images of a Smith &Wesson 9mm (not sure if it was inserted clip art or her ear ring). She seemed like a happy person; her toothy white grin was a testament to that (even if her previous tweets revealed a very angry person).

Her written bio revealed that she described herself as:

an “ardent follower of Christian conservative values and the Constitution.”

A lover of guns;

Proud citizen of Texas.

I’d be lying if I said this surprised me. I rolled my eyes. She was a full-fledged ideologist!

Who are the Ideologists?

I make no bones about it; I can’t stand ideologists. To me, the word is a pejorative term to refer to those who blindly follow ideologies from the most extreme ends of the political spectrum. Right or Left, those who adhere to these beliefs do so religiously. Many have rejected logic, reason or scientific evidence. Or worst yet, they cherry-pick data and embrace nearly every form of philosophical fallacy possible to support their beliefs.

They’ve also taken to the Internet with a vengeance. Not only have these folks created some of the most pitiful and disdainful blogs on the Net, they’ve invaded various news forums and content sites.

Yahoo News Forum and the content site Before Its News have been hit the hardest. Yahoo had to regulate and curtail the responses made to news article due to the ongoing war of words between various ideologists. Even non-political stories were infected with political or racial rants (one notorious example had to do with a report on endangered gorillas in Uganda. The comment section quickly became racially charged with derogatory posts comparing Obama to the gorillas).

Once a fairly respected site, Before Its News, which is an open site to read and contribute article to, was overtaken by Fundamental Christians, alternative medicine proponents (also known as woo promoters), ultra conservatives, libertarians, climate change deniers, and conspiracy theorists.

Exchange of Tweets

I responded to Liberty-Debbie’s comment:

“Are you referring to the tweet or the poem attached to it? It has nothing to do with blind ideology – left or right.”

Within an hour she responded with:

“blind ideology is NOT 4 me…just the truth of my God and Constitution!”

As it appears, she didn’t answer the question. She focused on the first part of my Tweet. I ruminated for a moment. Was I going to respond and ask the question differently and risk getting into a “Tweet war” with this individual, or was I going to let it go? Curiosity eventually dictated my actions.

“ The poem has nothing to do with politics. It’s about child abuse,” I tweeted. “Go back and read it.”

Another hour went by. Possibly, she read it and was too embarrassed to respond with an apology or a compliment (sure, in this day and age, such things are nearly impossible for many to do). My wishful thinking soon proved how wrong I was.

Liberty-Debbie responded. She treated me with a lethal dose of confirmation bias.

“4 me the poem parallels what’s going on in our country. The monster I fear [Obama] doesn’t hide.”

The “monster” in the poem was an abusive babysitter. In the poem (and in others), I referred to her as the “Ogre”.

This time, there was no hesitation about responding:

“The poem is about child abuse…turning it into something else is criminal.”

A few more hours passed. This was a pattern for her; I guess it took her a long time to come up with a response. She wrote:

"On its face it is. But the theme of 'those to whom we entrust our innocents, abuse us' is apt none the less (sic).”

I was aghast. She preferred her misinterpretation because it (somehow) garnered her political points and gave her the impression she was winning a Twitter war I wasn’t really fighting. I was here to clarify my work, not to fight a battle of words.

What Would Bradbury Do?

This episode reminded me of how famous writers handled such situations. J.R.R Tolkein used to lash out at those who misinterpreted the themes in work. It was reported that Ernest Hemingway “thanked” those that found meaning in his stories that he never intended. Even Ray Bradbury, reportedly left speaking engagements when somebody believed his famous story Fahrenheit 451 was a story about censorship (he’s often stated in interviews that it was about how TV was affecting, even dumbing, its viewers).

Now, I found myself in the same position. Thus, I came to the conclusion to do what Bradbury did when dealing with those that misinterpreted his work.

I gave up. There was no point in responding anymore. Like a true ideologist, she twisted something totally unrelated to fit her political bias. It was time to move on. I went on with life, at least for a few more days.

She's Back! Briefly

A couple days after the Twitter exchange, I received another one from Liberty-Debbie. This time, she retweeted a tweet/article of mine entitled: “What are Life Skill Course?” The article was about a special education program for students with intellectual or developmental disorders (considering that I'm a special education teacher, many of my articles are going to revolve around this subject).

“Breathing?” She tweeted, responding to the introductory tweet I wrote for this particular one.

After a long sigh, I responded:

“It’s about a special education course. Please read the article before responding. Thank You.”

Later that night, she responded. I saw the alert and dreaded it when I saw her name attached to it. Still, despite my annoyance, I opened it.

“Sorry to have intruded….please forgive me.”

Did something change over the course of the week? Who knows? This was the last time I heard from her.

One thing I was aware of was that politics brings out the worst in people. Not only that, it brings out the ignorance in many. Liberty-Debbie was a prime example of this. Sadly, she will not be the only one. Over the years, I had to deal with people like her.

Thus, if you come across a Tweet with a curious message and link. The likelihood is that there’s nothing political in it. Take it for it is, and leave all that ideology behind and get to the real heart -- and truth -- of the matter.

On top of that, the original gun-toting lady I saw on her Twitter page was replaced by a woman with a glowing smile and beautiful eyes.

A Link to the "Poem"

The Monster's Not In My Closet

Monster in real life don't hide in closets. They're out and about and sometimes all too close. This is a poem about child abuse.