I wanted to delete my Twitter account at least five, but no more than eight, times during the election cycle. Because I am a liberal, you could automatically assume my “twexit” would be caused by the alt-right movement or Donald Trump, but that is not the case.

My actual reason for almost leaving Twitter has to do with Outrage Culture, and yes — liberals.

2016 has drenched so many people on the left in pure rage that we have no other way to vent other than to tweet all-caps, 140-character manifestos about racism or whatever crazy thing is going on that week.

If Donald Trump’s election has proven anything — and it pains me to say this — yelling at people over racism/homophobia/sexism/white privilege/white feminism/misogyny/colorism/microaggressions/you get the point-isms does not actually stop them from being those bad things. And it certainly doesn’t help to be smug about it, either.

I love being angry. It is one of my true callings in life. But we, as a political party and a nation, need to channel our rage into something constructive.

May I suggest talking?

I don’t know if I will ever convince any red-hat-wearing Republican to join me at a Black Lives Matter rally, unless they are there to counter protest, which is fine by me. But I can try to convince them that systematic racism exists, and that we all have internal biases we can fight.

We don’t become a more progressive society, or a more perfect union, by anonymously yelling at each other over Twitter. We must work pragmatically, and peacefully, to achieve our goals; even if it means some face to face conversations and biting our tongues from time to time.

Send your angry tweets about this article to @JohnAloszka. We can talk about it.  

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