(...and why I can't seem to quit)

Oy... I really can't find the right words to describe what a cesspool I think social media has become.

I've been on Facebook for many years, and still spend far too much time on there (particularly now that I'm retired and fairly bored). I've always had a sort of love/hate relationship with it. I continue to love the way in which it enables you to reconnect and stay connected with old friends, as well as sometimes make a new one.

However, I find myself becoming more and more disillusioned with it. I've really come to resent the way in which their algorithm interprets my actions, and then inserts ads it thinks I may respond to. The sheer volume of these in my feed is becoming oppressive.

Oh well... I had hoped that by today (July 20), more people would have become horrified by what's happening to the country I love, but bluntly speaking, that's not happening.

I've never felt so hopeless in my life. I'm astonished at what tens of millions of people support, or at least, blithely accept.

I see another tens of millions of people who are trying to resist, but there's virtually no path to doing so beyond protests because there's no effective leadership or strategy within the resistance movement.

(Video below the transcript)

Good evening.

This is a special night for me. Exactly 3 years ago, on July 15, 1976, I accepted the nomination of my party to run for President of the United States. I promised you a President who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you.

During the past 3 years I've spoken to you on many occasions about national concerns, the energy crisis, reorganizing the Government, our Nation's economy, and issues of war and especially peace. But over those years the subjects of the speeches, the talks, and the press conferences have become increasingly narrow, focused more and more on what the isolated world of Washington thinks is important. Gradually, you've heard more and more about what the Government thinks or what the Government should be doing and less and less about our Nation's hopes, our dreams, and our vision of the future.

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