I Have Deleted Politics From My Digital Life

I want to be completely ignorant of what my Twitter people think about politics, and I want you to know as little about what I think as possible. Honestly, politics have become more divisive than unifying, even among friends and co-laborers in Christ, and the fight really just isn’t worth it to me anymore. Thankfully, it’s not a mandatory fight, online anyway. You can just dismiss yourself; so I did.

I was texting with some friends while watching the daily White House briefing over my lunch break last week when I made the decision:

“I am going to delete politics from my life, ” I said.

That was a bit of an overstatement, but it’s what I wanted to do in the moment. It’s a bit difficult, and irresponsible, to delete politics from your life entirely.

But I decided in that moment that I was going to delete them from my digital life as much as possible.

Why Would I Delete Politics From My Digital Life?

Contrary to what you may think, the desire to delete politics from my life did not come from a politician saying something silly or doing something offensive.

I decided I wanted to delete politics from my life when I hopped on Twitter or Facebook and couldn’t avoid, “Donald Trump said ___________,” or, “___________ said __________ about Donald Trump’s actions.”

I was disgusted by the amount and tone of the coverage.

Politics have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. When I was in the eighth grade, I wanted to be President of the United States, and I was dead serious. I was going to go to West Point, become a lawyer, then a senator, then president.

But I decided this week that I no longer want politics to happen to me. I want to engage with political discussions on my own terms, not my Twitter timeline’s terms, which bombarded me with political content every hour of the day.

Spiritually-speaking, I was reading a lot more articles about political happenings than I was praying prayers about what was going on. I thought I should spend less time consuming and more time praying, too. That was certainly part of my decision-making on this.

When I told my friends I was going to do this, the first thing one of them said was, “Well being apathetic is as bad as being raging mad.” Maybe, but deleting politics from my digital life is not being apathetic—those are two different things.

I want to be politically-informed, but I don’t want to hear what you think about politics, I don’t want to know what Washington Post columnists think, or Slate columnists think, or what Jake Tapper thinks, as much as I respect Jake.

I want to know what happened, but I don’t care to know what anyone thinks about what happened, and I no longer care to share what I think about what happened.

I subscribed to a paper version of the Wall Street Journal with some unused airline points, but I unfollowed dozens of accounts on Twitter and Facebook. I can’t stand the bombardment anymore.