No, Trump didn’t get a “mandate.” He didn’t get a majority of the popular vote and had the smallest winning percentage of any president in generations. No, “woke” isn’t just being courteous, and DEI isn’t just being against discrimination. And no, yours isn’t the side of good and theirs isn’t the side of evil, and everyone who fails to live up to your purity test isn’t part of the evil tribe.

I blame myself for trying to be as accommodating of differing views as possible. It had been my hope that commenters here would police themselves and each other, would exercise some modicum of self-control so as not to spew their tribe’s lies and delusions, as if to challenge me and others here to disprove them.

Last Tuesday Talk was a rude awakening for me, as the newly empowered MAGA nutjobs believed it was their time to spew nonsense. For years, I’ve been critical of the unduly passionate who wallowed in their toxic mix of misery and outrage as if their self-professed claim of righteousness entitled them to reinvent the world in their simplistic vision. They aren’t on the “right side of history,” even if they lacked the depth of thought to realize that claiming so didn’t make it so.

Now, the other team is feeling its oats, and because of my error in being too accommodating to ideas either at, or beyond, the fringe, they burdened my blog with their idiocy. There are thoughtful arguments to be made for and against most issues. These were not thoughtful, but predicated on the slew of lies perpetrated by a stunningly small man for whom neither facts nor reason played a significant role in his life.

This is now over. I let you have the opportunity to offer thoughtful arguments, and instead you used them to spew lies and delusions. They are no more tolerable from the right than from the left. They are no less lies because Trump said so or you so desperately need to believe whatever bolsters your tribe’s power that you become the credulous fool.

There will always be room at SJ for thoughtful arguments, grounded in facts and reality. And there are arguments for right, left and middle, to be made that fulfill these criteria. But I will no longer suffer the lies, delusions or idiocy of either side. If that’s what you feel compelled to do, then expect your comment to be trashed. Brandolini’s Law has wiped me out, and I am no longer interested in putting in the effort to unexplain your bullshit. Don’t email me to ask why your comment was trashed. I won’t reply.

This is not to say you can’t express your beliefs, no matter how stupid, false or irrational they may be. Just not here. And if this doesn’t sit well with you, you can always go elsewhere and never darken my door again.

To be clear, you are welcome here without regard to whether you consider your views to be right, left, center or some combo of all. Just ground your views in facts and reason rather than the partisan delusions that enable the nutjob extremists on both right and left to believe they own “truth” to the exclusion of everyone else.

And while I’m at it, if you support the idea of a blawg that welcomes thoughtful views without regard to their political side, then support SJ by hitting the button on the sidebar. This place doesn’t run for free, and it’s gotten more expensive recently to keep the lights on. If you don’t find it worthy of support, then I’m wasting my time keeping the doors open. I see, and appreciate very much, those of you who already support SJ, and I see those of you who use it on other people’s dime. I hope you will join in supporting SJ, and I hope you will agree that keeping SJ free of lies and delusions, whether right or left, will make this experience better for all of us.