A lot of commenters aren’t trying to persuade anyone. They’re planting flags. They want receipts. They want to come back months later and say, “Told you so,” to a stranger who may or may not even remember the exchange.
Being right in retrospect has become a form of social currency. It’s not enough to win; you have to have predicted the win correctly, loudly, and on record. This incentivizes extreme confidence and discourages nuance. Saying “it’s complicated” doesn’t screenshot well.
The Quiet Absurdity of It All
Step back far enough, and the whole thing is faintly ridiculous. Millions of people with no direct control over outcomes arguing ferociously about hypotheticals, treating vibes as data and data as personal insults.
Florida will vote how Florida votes. The ticket will perform how it performs. None of this will be changed by a 47-comment thread that devolves into arguing about polls from three different years.
And yet—here we are. Because politics has become one of the few arenas where people still feel something collectively. Anger, hope, dread, superiority—it’s all there, raw and unfiltered, waiting under a post that could have been ignored.
Proceeding at Your Own Risk
So yes, the real landslide is in the comment section. Not because it reveals truth, but because it reveals nerves.
