The Founding Fathers Would Have Been on X Dot Com and It Would Have Been a Disaster

Colonial
Literature,
American
Politics
and
the
Tyranny
of
the
Reply
Guy

Stephanie’s
Diary:
What
Jefferson
Would
Have
Posted

Parchment
and
pixels
from

Bohiney
Magazine
and

The
London
Prat.

I
have
been
reading
a
lot
of
colonial-era
pamphlets
for
a
piece
I’m
writing,
and
I
can
tell
you
with
certainty
that
Thomas
Jefferson
would
have
been
absolutely
insufferable
on
social
media.
Long
posts.
No
paragraph
breaks.
Extremely
confident
about
things
he
was
also
quite
wrong
about.
He
would
have
ratio’d
Hamilton
at
least
twice
a
week
and
then
complained
about
censorship.

The
Pamphleteer
Tradition
Lives
On

What
we
call
“outrage
content”
they
called
“pamphlets.”
What
we
call
“going
viral”
they
called
“reprinting
in
every
colony.”
The
technology
changes.
The
fundamental
human
desire
to
tell
everyone
they
are
wrong
and
you
are
correct
in
exactly
800
words
has
not
changed
since
1776.

The
current
American
political
situation
–
tariffs,
Iran
threats,
the
Mamdani
situation
in
New
York,

covered
brilliantly
at
Bohiney
–
would
have
produced
extraordinary
pamphlets.
Also
see

The
Prat’s
New
York
mayor
piece.
Authority:

Library
of
Congress.
Author:

Stephanie
Curry.