It’s the latest in a series of national tragedies that have many people seeing red on social media.
"Their blood is all over your hands & voters who vote for U," a user calling himself GodGuns&Trump (@PatriotByGod)," tweeted Friday morning in response to presumed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's comment on the fatal sniper shooting of five Dallas police officers during a Black Live Matters rally the previous night. "You & @POTUS have promoted #BLM & put #Police in danger."
But just as many were seeing blue. At virtually the same time GodGuns&Trump was tweeting Friday, so was Civil Savage (@Hustle_Scholar), who stuck up for the civil rights movement that began several years ago as a form of protest over a string of police shootings of unarmed black men:
“We are dealing with minds who believe #BLM has its own sniper squad. How can u even begin to reason with a person like that.”
Welcome to the bizarro world of social media. It’s where more Americans go now than ever before to get their news — and also where the dividing lines are becoming as starkly drawn as an election night map with entire regions shaded red (for Republican or conservative-thinking ) or blue (for Democratic or more liberal-thinking) camps.
Indeed, when law enforcement officials on Friday identified the Dallas sniper as Micah Xavier Johnson, a 25-year-old former Army reservist who’d served in Afghanistan, it was all the excuse some people needed to burrow even deeper into their respective trenches far apart on the social media map.
There was this Facebook post by Mark Dice, which linked to a YouTube video featuring a series of Twitter posts from people supposedly approving of the shooter's actions:
“Dallas Shooter Called ‘Hero’ by Black Lives Matter Supporters. Look at what they are publicly posting on social media about the Black Power terrorist Micah Xavier Johnson. These enemies of humanity must be brought to justice!”
Was Dice talking about @Miranto? Maybe, as that user responded to Johnson being identified by posting this tweet:
“Micah Xavier Johnson is a hero in my book. He saw abuse and he did something. #DallasPoliceShooting.” (Note: Later Friday, the tweet no longer existed).
Many who read Dice and @Miranto's posts may well be nodding along and thinking, "I had that in my newsfeed. But not that other one. "
That’s if they even know about the other viewpoint. Even the very existence of these opposing social media camps is becoming less readily apparent to the average person, whose Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds tend to fill up with posts from mostly like-minded friends, relatives or celebrities (the so-called “echo chamber effect” that some experts fret is turning us into a nation of equally well-informed people on diametrically opposed sides of issues).
But the divide is there. More than ever. And all it takes is something like Thursday night’s horror in Texas to put it in the social media spotlight.
For some on social media, like this post from Open Carry Missouri, the obvious response to the Dallas shootings was pretty much to shut down protests and arm everyone:
“Time to ban all BLM riots (rallies). Be armed, be ready.”
For others, it was just the opposite.
"This open carry in Dallas, Missouri and wherever else is ridiculous," LuLu DeStefano Scavone posted on Facebook.
"Why isn't anyone talking about gun control?" television writer-producer Shonda Rhimes (@shondarhimes) posted, clearly planting her flag on one side of the Twitter divide Friday morning. "Last night, a man with a high powered rifle committed a mass shooting. Again. GUN CONTROL."
Will Rhimes, the creator of such TV dramas as “Scandal” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” lose any fans as a result of her strong comments on real world events? Perhaps, although her popularity also means she might be able to bridge the blue-red divide on social media, if only temporarily.
If only everyone could read Georgia E. Dawkins' Facebook post from Friday morning. Invoking the names of recent black shooting victims and the hardworking Dallas police who'd just been trying to keep the peace, the Atlanta resident wrote this:
“Do me a favor…
Show some love today. We all need it. We’re not OK.
#DallasPoliceShooting #PhilandoCastile #AltonSterling”
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