See below for an excellent, thoughtful post by VA State Senator Danica Roem after a week in which she found herself – like many of us, no doubt – “vacillat[ing] between dejection and anger in a ‘Is this really the best we can do? Is this where we’re at? Why the hell is everything so broken?’ sort of way.” IMHO, a lot of it has to do with the rise of the internet, smartphones, and other communications technologies that do a bunch of bad things – e.g., an increase in “echo chambers” and some really toxic (demonizing, bigoted, conspiracy-and-falsehood-filled, dehumanizing, etc.) online engagement, groups, subcultures, etc.; a decrease in actual human connection, even as (ironically) it’s called “SOCIAL media,” and an apparent upsurge in anxiety, depression and loneliness among young people (presumably caused by multiple factors, including – studies have found – heavy social media usage); etc.
As for Sen. Roem’s thoughts on the media, they have a lot of credibility coming from someone who worked as a journalist – and an excellent one! – for years. Personally, I’ve been frustrated, disappointed, etc. with the “mainstream media” for years, and if anything that frustration has been growing, as I believe the “mainstream media” is getting worse and worse in a bunch of ways (e.g., sloppy reporting, “both sidesism”/false equivalence, “sanewashing”/whitewashing/stenography). For instance, on the story of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, this morning’s headlines brought us this story (in “The Verge,” a Vox Media publication “about technology and how it makes us feel”), entitled “The WSJ carelessly spread anti-trans misinformation: The Wall Street Journal’s fuckup while covering Charlie Kirk’s killing needs more than an editor’s note.” Also, interestingly, most of the stories in this morning’s news clips that actually added value on this hugely important story were NOT in the biggest news outlets – whether the WaPo, NY Times, NBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, PBS, etc. – but in smaller publications like Mother Jones (“The Full Weight of the Federal Government Is Being Used to Memorialize Charlie Kirk: And to punish those who speak ill of him.”); Wired (“Bullets Found After the Charlie Kirk Shooting Carried Messages. Here’s What They Mean: The inscriptions on bullets recovered near the scene of Charlie Kirk’s murder appear to reference video games like Helldivers 2 and online furry role-play, not a legible political ideology.”); The New Republic (“Trump Just Went on Fox and Issued an Unnerving Threat Against Liberals”); MediaMatters (“On the killing of Charlie Kirk, political violence, and the right’s response”); Vanity Fair (“Groypers, Helldivers 2, Furries: What Do the Messages Left by Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Killer Actually Mean? Suspect Tyler Robinson allegedly inscribed messages on bullet casings that reference video games and internet culture—but they hardly point toward a coherent ideology.”); the Editorial Board (this entire Bluesky thread is worth reading); etc. And no, you won’t find almost any of this actual analysis, research, etc. in the corporate media…for a bunch of (almost all bad) reasons.
Anyway, with that, check out Sen. Roem’s Facebook post, which among other things makes the crucial point that “it’s so important to remember that we can feel really strongly against what someone believes, what they say or how they act without violating the most basic [tenets] of nonviolent resistance.”
Exactly.
“A late-night reflection.
While I was driving home tonight, I was thinking about the last few days and just exhaled rather intentionally, shaking my head side to side. I reflected on how I’ve felt — and truth be told, it vacillated between dejection and anger in a ‘Is this really the best we can do? Is this where we’re at? Why the hell is everything so broken?’ sort of way.
On the one hand, as a human being, I’ve felt anger toward the shooters in Utah and Colorado; the enragement-is-engagement incentive structure of the social media industry that truly spun out of control this week; and the finger-pointing tribalism I watched on full display that led to people outside of politics just going off on each other, talking past each other and saying things that won’t be forgotten or taken back when the same people used to hang out together before we all got so online as a society.
It really, *really* made me miss a portion of the ’00s when I’d go to Jaxx in West Springfield and rarely had a clue about most of my friends’ political ideology because we were all just having a good time, seeing our favorite bands together. I miss that to a teary-eyed amount, if I’m being real with you.
Then, as a reporter-turned-legislator, I was (and just being candid and honest with you, still am) so upset with the one major newspaper in particular for reporting single-sourced speculation as fact when that turned out to be wrong. None of my professors at the Jandoli School of Journalism (yes, Journalism, not “Communication”) at St. Bonaventure University or my editors at the Gainesville Times/Prince William Times, The Hotline or the Montgomery County Sentinel would have ever okayed that.
Why one newspaper in particular? Because they know better. They have standards of journalistic mission that *very* much involve fact-checking and government accountability rooted in demanding public officials show evidence to support their claims, not just telling reporters something and expecting those reporters to repeat it.
A huge part of my heart is still very much in the newsroom. I gave 14.5 years of my life (college + career) to it. I want quality, fact-based and fact-checked journalism to still matter to the public — and it hurts my heart and head alike when it fails. Failure not only pushes misinformation that kindles disinformation into the public but it also hurts trust in the institution of journalism itself.
Yes, they’re human beings. Yes, they make mistakes. Yes, they deserve grace — but when the stakes are really high and they get it wrong, there isn’t a quick fix to the damage it does. People love to hate the media and yet a credible name behind the story still carries clout that political charlatans (as one of my J-school profs would say…) don’t have with the public.
All of this led me to think about Utah Governor Spencer Cox’s (R) public statements from the last couple of days, and how he’s urged people to walk back from the fringe of hate and violence. I then thought about who on the Democratic side has a similar demeanor and instantly thought of North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson (D), who’s earned a bit of a national following for posting a lot of even-keeled, indoor voice, explainer videos and speaking the same way during interviews.
I thought about how both of them are kind of similar — middle-aged white men, elected statewide, who feel deeply about things without being flamethrowers. That isn’t to say I haven’t really strongly disagreed with Governor Cox over some of his policy stances or statements or even with some comments he made during the press conferences. I didn’t think the wish-it-was-a-non-American comment helped, for example, given that I represent people from all around the world here in the greater Prince William community.
But his tone spoke more than his actual choice of words. It’s this recognition that we’re in a really toxic state in society right now and we really, really need leaders on both sides of the aisle publicly advocating for dialogue over violence and recognizing the humanity in each other.
That doesn’t mean we don’t champion our values or act passively while watching horrible things happen. Rather, I think much more about what MLK had to say about the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance and how much work went into that: how the civil rights leaders in the ’60s strategized, organized, demonstrated and endured day after day after day with the goal of creating change not only through laws but also in how people thought and felt about their own neighbors.
It was the exact opposite of passivity. When you watch interviews MLK did in the ’50s and ’60s, you see that for *years* he stayed on-message. It must have taken just so much discipline, especially when talking to people who didn’t think he should have the same rights they did.
As he explained at the time, ‘The phrase ‘passive resistance’ often gives the false impression that this is a sort of ‘do-nothing method’ in which the resister quietly and passively accepts evil. But nothing is further from the truth. For while the nonviolent resister is passive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent, his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade his opponent that he is wrong.’
I quote that because we’ve been hearing a lot lately about how the modern era of political violence is rekindling the worst from the 1960s and ’70s, the very violence that took MLK’s life. Truth be told, political violence specifically and large-scale violence more broadly have never gone away since then… but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue striving for our hallowed More Perfect Union.
That phrase in and of itself is an acknowledgement that we’ll always have division, always have pain and always have things going wrong while also acknowledging that it’s still in our hands to do something to make our country a little bit better.
All of this got me thinking about my own time in the Virginia General Assembly: six years in the Virginia House of Delegates and now my second year in the Senate of Virginia.
One thing about being in the Senate of Virginia that’s different from being in the House of Delegates is, in the Senate chamber, it’s a physically smaller room. Members on both sides of the aisle interact with each other much more often because we all serve on so many committees that are much smaller in number, so there’s a lot more overlap.
That also means we don’t scream at each other on the floor. Some of our debates get heated, for sure, and I’m no exception there. Specifically, there’s one issue where I’ve gotten into really intense floor fights in both chambers: transportation safety. I have damn-good reason for it too. Remember that whole section above about journalism? When you spend 9+ years covering your home community and spend 9+ years writing front-page obituaries about students and young adults killed in crashes, you never, ever forget it.
But we don’t yell on the Senate floor. That’s a big no. In the House? For sure. I didn’t do it often but when I did, I sure as hell meant what I said… *and* I recognized that I wasn’t at my best either, and my constituents deserved better than that, even when their legislator is really passionate about trying to not get people killed on the road.
So I’ve tried to do better in the Senate — though, even there, I’m still learning what it means to be my best in committee and the floor. I’m pretty sure if I talked to some of the more senior members who’ve been there for decades, even they’d say they’re always learning what that means for them too.
Yet, I also know that while there’s always the temptation to reflect on what’s gone wrong — and that’s pretty much the gist of this entire thing to this point — it’s so easy for us to overlook the examples of people who really do try to get it right.
That’s why I wanted to mention the press conference. That’s also why I wanted to mention the Virginia General Assembly.
A couple years ago when I was in the House, I was at a funeral and chatted with a member from the other side of the aisle. We talked for a good while and when I asked him why he ran for office in the first place, he didn’t hesitate even a minute before saying with honest, genuine, soft-spoken conviction that God called him to it.
That was certainly a different answer than mine, despite my 13 years of Catholic school. I wanted to fix Route 28 so people like my ma could have reasonable commutes from Manassas to Dulles. I didn’t feel a higher calling about it; I just wanted to help and thought I could do a good job.
Fast-forward to my first year in the Senate. I had a really bad day. When I got into the Capitol the next morning, I was still feeling down but recalled how when one of my former colleagues saw me dejected by the elevators in 2018 after a bunch of my bills went down in subcommittee, she said, “Don’t you *ever* let them see you like that! They’ll eat you alive if they see you like that!”
So, here I was again, about to step onto an elevator, trying to keep a strong face for the public when that delegate from the other side of the aisle walked by with one of his caucus mates. He saw me, told the other member he’d catch up with him later, and walked over to me. In all candor, I was a bit uncertain about why he wanted to talk to me.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” he said, and just gave me a hug.
He had no idea how much that mattered in that moment or what a mark that left on me.
Later, an administrative assistant from another office I walk by and say hello to each morning pulled me aside and said something uplifting too. Then I walked into my office, and one of the other members and another person had left me really kind notes and a couple flowers.
That’s the side of politics that doesn’t make headlines. It doesn’t feed into an outrage loop. It doesn’t gin up hostility, anger, grief or pain. It’s just people being people, being kind toward each other.
It’s the capacity to see someone feeling hurt and wanting to do something to make them feel a little better, a little less hurt.
During my first year in the House in 2018, when my bills were being defeated one after the next and my constituents cried in my arms four times in a row, I stopped by the office of the then-dean of the House so I could ask him for advice. I had no idea that when I would sit down, the whole experience would catch up with me and I that what my constituents felt, I did too, in that moment — even though your legislator is supposed to be, shall we say, Tougher Than That.
In this really kind, grandfatherly way, he called over to his legislative assistant and asked for a box of tissues… and he just let me have time to compose myself, never judging me for it or looking down on me for showing a moment of weakness in a line of work where such a thing is scorned.
I can say the same thing about another colleague, who did pretty much the same thing our first year in the House, just on the steps leading to the third floor of the Capitol after a private debate among our county’s delegation brought up some childhood bullying memories I wished to forget.
Politics isn’t easy and it often isn’t kind. The things that get the most attention are issues of life-and-death, morality and values, and shaping the society we wish to see in our part of the world. Us vs. Them.
So when you feel personally targeted, mocked, ridiculed, denigrated or attacked — or your feel like someone from your tribe is — you can lash out at whoever caused it. It’s particularly upsetting when you see people from the other side celebrate someone from your side dying or getting assaulted, which Republicans felt this week and Democrats felt in June. The same people also feel anger when someone from the other side whose viewpoints or beliefs they vehemently oppose is lionized.
Rather than invalidate how anyone feels, it’s so important to remember that we can feel really strongly against what someone believes, what they say or how they act without violating the most basic tenants of nonviolent resistance.
As MLK said, ‘Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.’
Without a doubt, what I wrote above will lead some people to agree and some people to disagree; some to say I was spot-on and some to say I’m egregiously naive.
I accept all of that because I accept that you have the right to think what you want to think, say what you want to say and feel what you want to feel, just the same that I do. It’s something that cuts across ideology, party and time and it’s something — one of the few things it may seem but something enduring nonetheless — we all have in common.
-Danica
