From The Elephant in the Room

This is an excerpt from my Amazon Kindle Single, The Elephant in the Room. It took place at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in the summer. This is why I think Twitter helped Trump get elected:

I
never saw the avocado lady’s speech. The nights were long and grueling and she
was on so late that I had staggered outside for some fresh air. But the next
day other journalists kept asking me, “Did you see the avocado lady? It was hilarious!”

“What
was so hilarious about the avocado lady?” I asked them.

“Oh,
she went on this crazy rant about avocados!” one journalist said. “It was just
this mad outburst about avocados!”

Grinning
with expectation, I hurried to YouTube to watch the avocado lady’s speech.

The
avocado lady turned out to be the actor Kimberlin Brown, formerly of the soap
operas “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.” She was
now an avocado grower. I can sort of understand why some people found her speech
hilarious. After a punishing week of relentless shrieks from the delegate floor
of “DO YOUR JOB!” and “BUILD THE WALL!” a week of relentless warnings from the
stage that terrorists and illegal immigrants lurk within our borders poised to
kill us or rape us or run us over while driving drunk, we were skittish for
fun. And there was something casually
absurd about the juxtaposition between “The Bold and the Beautiful” and
avocados.

But
her speech was not hilarious. “As an avocado grower,” she said, “I face the
impact of our trade policies. Our domestic market is flooded with imports that
harm local farmers and even drive some out of business. My neighbors, who have
raised this product for years, are being forced to cut down their groves.” She
sounded close to tears. “Since it was announced that I was speaking to you all
tonight, I have been attacked in social media with all kinds of outrageous
insults. The left wants to silence those it disagrees with.”

It
struck me that the plight of American farmers suffering because of trade deals
was worth getting concerned about, no matter where one stands politically, and
I wondered how Twitter had responded to her speech.

This
is how Twitter responded: “Okay Kimberlin
Brown get off the stage. No one
wants to hear about your damn avocado
business” and “20 bucks says Kimberlin Brown utilizes and abuses migrant
workers on her avocado farm” and “Trump has really scraped the bottom of the
speaker barrel” and “Kimberlin Brown is a soap opera actress and apparent
avocado farmer. She doesn’t mention how many illegal immigrants she
employs that are taking jobs a majority of Americans don’t want. Now she is
whining about *gasp* social media being relentless.”