The performative aspect of Twitter demands that a surprising amount of people publicly proclaim that they would *obviously* be cool, calm and totally collected if a large group of protesters (in an extraordinarily tense national moment) marched directly onto their own property.

My point is not that the couple behaved impeccably. It’s to say, a lot of people seem overconfident in their own even-keeled goodness and calmness and generosity and clearsightedness.

I’m also genuinely surprised how many people seem to believe it doesn’t matter that this was well within private property. I can’t conceive of a reason a protest would come onto a yard like that. What am I missing here?

This does not look like a street to me. Again, the couple should never have been waving their guns around like that, but my point is why would protesters breach the gate here? And why do so many proclaim they would be fine if this were their home?

This convo reminds me of when Trump disgustingly insulted the city of Baltimore. But then Twitter didn’t just condemn his disgusting comments, and say that they were too broad to capture the complexity of the town. Lots of people started proclaiming Baltimore was totally swell.

It’s that *extra* completely performative step that really fascinates me about social media. People who would never live in Baltimore or feel comfortable in enormous swaths of the city insisting they love that place and there is just nothing at all wrong there. It’s nuts.