- dogs owners letting their dogs poop in other people's yards
- dog owners not picking up after their pets
- cars driving too fast near schools
- occasional helicopters circling a neighborhood
- cars being broken into that homeowners leave unlocked in their driveways
- packages being stolen off of front porches
- rattlesnakes being found in a large planter, or on a hiking path, or in someone's garage
- really loud music blasting late at night from a party where the parents are not home
- graffiti somewhere in the city
- drivers who cut you off or drive recklessly or who don't know how to turn on a double-lane turn
- strangers walking around the neighborhood or sitting in vehicles on residential streets who don't live there
- unleashed dogs attacking leashed dogs on walking trails
- coyotes attacking any dog that's smaller than a coyote
... that kind of thing. Sometimes there are nice posts of someone who needs moving boxes, or someone who needs a heavy piece of furniture moved or picked up, or to borrow a ladder or wheelbarrow or other tool. Over the years there have been lost pet posts, please adopt this dog or cat posts, seeking a pet sitter posts.. and that genre of neighborhood communication. But nearly all of that has changed.
When the malignant narcissist was installed by the United State's electoral college after losing the popular vote in 2016, I significantly decreased the frequency that I ever visited the Book Face (or FaceBook as most people call it), because I was sick and tired of all the Russian bot generated fake news with inflammatory headlines designed to enrage whoever clicked on them. Troll bots drove massive amounts of traffic and eye ball exposure to misleading, or fabricated, or out-of-context "news stories" that so many devoted followers clicked on, and liked, or shared, and propagated faster than Covid-19 is currently spreading around the world. I did NOT want any part of that, and trying to fend it off or combat it, or explain why it was incorrect was becoming an enormous waste of time. So I withdrew from that battlefield (yes, the Book Face IS a battlefield, fighting for your attention, surveilling your data and preferences, plotting to try and sell you ads for stuff you don't want, while also re-selling your data to retailers and big data research firms to make even MORE money off of your "free" account - and their Instagram acquisition is no better. It just has prettier pictures most of the time).
Around that time, Dr Desert Flower and I had just moved into a house in a new neighborhood, in a new city a few months before, and one of the realtors who lived in the neighborhood was the administrator of the local community Next-door site. I signed up and created an account for DDF and I, and we "welcomed" other new neighbors, got to know several of the people who lived around us, donated our moving boxes to people who needed them, and even eventually adopted a pet who was posted on Nextdoor as being in need of a home.
Gradually, as the malignant narcissist out lasted the Mueller investigation, and then the Republican Senate refused to convict the impeached president, I noticed that the posts and the comments on Nextdoor.com became increasingly political, aggressively confrontational, angry, and nasty. "Mean spirited" does no begin to describe the vitriol that so many neighbors readily spouted on the site. MAGA themes, and anti-MAGA themes pervaded any kind of post you could imagine, even ones that had NOTHING to do with politics. Emboldened by the "new normal" that the White House had established in bullying, criticizing, using hate speech, being openly racist, without any repercussions, fans of the president found fertile ground in which to plant their ideologies. Liberals and progressives would often provoke them - inadvertently often or overtly sometimes - and stoke the hate and anger to completely uncivilized levels of disgusting discourse.
Then, the Covid-19 shelter-in-place orders came out, first from governors who needed to take action without any coherent leadership from the deniers in the White House. Then, the White House issued the "president's guidelines" for how to stay safe in the pandemic by mailing everyone post cards 2ith instructions that just a few weeks before the malignant narcissist had been mocking. Once the States were in quarantine, and everyone was home with ample time on their hands, the flood gates - which had been LEAKING terribly - burst wide open.
Nextdoor became a full-on platform for those who were taking self-isolation and shelter-in-place to the strictest levels began railing on anyone they saw outside on the street or sidewalk as a public menace if that person or persons did not meet their level of sterile precautions. The MAGA fans exploded back in hostile retribution telling those who criticized them where they could go and where they could stick things. Moderators (like the realtor who admins our neighborhood site) now had a FULL TIME job taking down postings that were erupting with neighbors screaming at each other, injecting politics and personal beliefs into any and every posting imaginable.
Posts like:
a) does anyone know when the city will open the hiking trails again?
or
b) the condos across the main road have 2 Covid cases in them, the City posted it on everyone's doors
or
c) does anyone have an extension ladder I could borrow on Saturday?
or
d) My son and daughter-in-law are stuck in Peru where the cruise ship they were on is quarantined; does anyone know how I can get them back home?
or
e) I have some extra lemons, if anyone would like a few, our tree made so many
... devolved, within 3 to 5 replies, to "that's the whole problem with you libertards!" or "it's the president you voted for who killed my uncle by not implementing a national plan!" or "why don't you create a database that tracks everyone's health, doctor visits, cough, sniffles, and Rxs in the whole neighborhood?"
The little old lady just had some extra lemons... she was not trying to start an armed conflict.
And it is not just down here in San Diego County. Our friends in Orange County have noticed the same thing, perhaps even worse. Our civil society isn't. Civil discourse is dead. Everyone is too angry and hateful, entrenched in there own camp, fed by Fox News and MSNBC, OAN and Talking Points Memo, Brietbart and The Raw Story, Drudge Report and The Washington Post, The New York Times and Gawker, Politico and The Washington Examiner.
I've been telling people who I know that there will very likely be an ugly American civil war if the 45th president loses in November 2020 and refuses to step down, or calls the election "rigged" (as he did in 2016), and possibly declares Marshal Law as violence rises in both red and blue states, minorities and outspoken voices of reason, and those who are not wearing the right 'patriotic' colors are lynched, hospitalized, or disappear. Most people scoff at such a notion, and say "things won't get to that level." But look how QUICKLY Nextdoor spiraled downward. Neighborhood residents CANNOT Fake profiles or Hide as an anonymous troll on Nextdoor. It is a verified, regulated, moderated site, where Open Discourse is supposed to be the norm. Open, civilized discourse.
It will not take much to go from Complainingneighbors.com to Violentneighbors.com or WeKNOWwhereyoulive.com, by ideologues who have forgotten how to discuss facts, respectfully, and politely.
