One of the great things about Twitter is the way its brevity and immediacy encourage really stupid people to say really stupid things in a really stupid and concise manner... which I suppose doesn't do much to further public discourse, but does provide a gold mine of material to people like me who enjoy making fun of really stupid people. Like, for example, self-described "recovering political operative" and former RNC Chief Digital Strategist Todd Herman.
For some unexplained reason, Herman found himself riding Sound Transit's Link Light Rail the other night, and immediately started tweeting the glaring flaws in the system that only he had the intellectual capacity and rigor to recognize.
toddeherman Jan 3, 6:00pm
What makes sense to #Seattle "light-rail" dreamers? No ticket gates to force purchase, union security guards on ALL trains to check 4 tixtoddeherman Jan 3, 6:08pm
@DarylNorthrop 1. Allows claim of higher ridership, 2. Employs union labor 3. Enables selective enforcment (poor areas not checked)
toddeherman Jan 3, 6:14pm
@DarylNorthrop I would hire you to do that. I bet your train wouldn't stop at stop lights. My first & hopefully last Lunk Light Rail ride.
toddeherman Jan 3, 6:17pm
#Seattle #Link Light Rail Scam: Selective enforecement of fair requirements. Certain neighborhoods allowed free ride.
Hear that? Herman takes one ride on Link, and based on this extensive research, he brilliantly deduces that Sound Transit does not enforce fares in poor (i.e., non-white) neighborhoods. Ohmigod... he's figured out our liberal scam!
The next day Sound Transit attempts to explain, but clever Herman, he's not buying it:
SoundTransit: 9:03am, Jan 04
@toddeherman Nobody gets a free ride on #Link. Enforcement checks everybody on the train.toddeherman 5:45pm
@SoundTransit That is demonstrably un-true. Last night all guards exited at Stadium & remained off the train through, International blvd.
SoundTransit 6:06pm
@toddeherman Yep. Fare enforcement officers get on and off trains all along alignment. Never know when you'll be checked.
toddeherman 7:47pm
RT @SoundTransit: SoundTransit uses a "proof of payment" system on #Linklightrail \False. Security exited train, gone for 6 stops last nite
SoundTransit 7:55pm
@toddeherman Here's how it works. Fare checkers get on train car, check all passengers, get off. Repeat on different car.
toddeherman 8:21pm
@SoundTransit Perhaps that's how it's supposed to work. No fares checked between stadium \ Int'nl blvd last night. Shall I video next time?
(Sigh.)
Eventually, the folks at Seattle Transit Blog jump into the exchange, and Herman reluctantly accepts their explanation that fare checks are intentionally random, and that once on the train, officers do indeed check all passengers, regardless of race, creed or income level.
Of course, this isn't Herman's first brush with really stupid impulsive tweeting. Herman (who apparently made his fortune and reputation at Microsoft due to hard work innovative thinking intellectual prowess timing) is perhaps best known for being forced out of the RNC after tweeting a link claiming President Barack Obama is a Muslim.
So maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this whole exchange, as really stupid and impulsive as it was, can further public discourse... at least in the sense that it clearly illustrates the desperately stupid level to which our public discourse so often sinks at the hands of mean-spirited, race-baiting propagandists like Todd Herman.
For in sowing these really stupid lies throughout Twitter and the rest of the Internet, Herman isn't being nearly as really stupid as he first appears. The RNC may not have appreciated the bad publicity Herman brought it, but they sure do love the fact that 20 percent of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim. And perpetuating lies like that is what seeding Twitter and the rest of the Internet with really stupid tweets like Herman's is all about.
