I don’t know why people—myself included—allow themselves to become upset when actors make political statements during their award acceptance speeches or when an elected official spouts obvious crap on social media.

Is anyone truly surprised? Has anyone learned anything new?

If we are to repair public discourse in this country, we need to stop taking the bait. The perpetual outrage machine needs us to click through, stay stoked, fire back before thinking—and it requires tankers of this fuel every day to keep running amok.

Just like everyone else, I’m flooded with tweets, vines, gifs, memes, clips, 24-hour cable news shows, fly-by-night websites and the occasional foreign-government PSYOPS, so I am constantly on guard, especially with people I’m likely to agree with.

Bitching among friends is addictive. It’s also pointless.

My standard is now this: if a message is seemingly designed solely to provoke an emotion—anger or righteousness—then I’m most likely being played.

What about your snarky comments, fancy boy?

Point taken. Mea culpa. I’ll dial it down a notch.

Except for Steve Bannon, alt-right jackass. The man is unfit for government service. Conservative columnist David Brooks also has an interesting piece today on Bannon’s potential negative affect on American foreign relations: “Bannon Versus Trump.”