Whitlock: ESPN broadcaster Sarah Spain’s childish behavior epitomizes the contagion undermining Matt Walsh’s documentary

Historians will lament social media’s spread of the "blocked and charged" contagion. Its unprecedented negative impact on human engagement threatens democracies, freedom, and truth.

Blocked and charged is at the root of most of the alleged social contagions, existential threats, and pandemics the corporate medias rely on for ratings and relevance.

Blocked and charged has been around since the beginning of time. Its origins date back to the first time a young child stuck index fingers in his ears, closed his eyes, and shouted at the top of his lungs to avoid acknowledging an upsetting idea, opinion, or piece of information. Social media developers normalized the behavior for adults. Twitter and other social media apps trained influencers to block dissenting views and then charge their dissenters with racism, homophobia, misogyny, and/or transphobia.

Yesterday, ESPN opinionist Sarah Spain executed the blocked and charged concept to perfection. Troubled by a handful of Tampa Rays baseball players refusing to wear gay pride patches on their uniforms on religious grounds, Spain took to the "Around the Horn" airwaves to charge the players with bigotry.

“This is what tends to happen when frivolous class isn’t affected by things,” Spain said. “That religious exemption BS is used in sports and otherwise also allows for people to be denied health care, jobs, apartments, children, prescriptions, all sorts of rights. We have to stop tiptoeing around it because we’re trying to protect people who are trying to be bigoted from asking for them to be exempt from it, when the very people that they are bigoted against are suffering the consequences you say trying to be bigoted.”

That’s quite the word salad, but I believe Spain is saying that Tampa pitchers Jason Adam, Jalen Beeks, Brooks Raley, Jeffrey Springs and Ryan Thompson are using their religious faith to express bigotry.

After charging the players the players with bigotry on TV, Spain took to Twitter to clarify her position:

“Using your religion as a shield for ignorance and bigotry is antiquated – and it’s a choice. It’s a choice made of privilege. You’re not affected by the policies and laws that discriminate. You’re not endangered by the hatred that bubbles.”

She then, based on the replies of several of her dissenters, began the process of blocking people who disagreed with her anti-religion screeds.

Blocked. Charged.

It’s the preferred tactic of corporate media. It’s the nuclear option for "mute and dispute."

The negative impact on American culture cannot be denied. Social media has trained us to avoid engagement with people we disagree with and to never settle an argument. Block, charge, and move on.

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh produced a provocative, thoughtful, and entertaining documentary on the transgender issue. Most of the legacy media are refusing to review the doc or interview Walsh. The Daily Wire published a story about the vitriolic rejection emails it received from movie critics.

“Hard f–ing pass. I won’t give that transphobic bigot a platform on my site. Never email me again” one respondent told the Wire’s PR team.

Blocked. Charged.

This is a social media contagion that has polluted our entire society. For years, I didn’t have one friend who cared that I was politically agnostic and that my worldview was biblically conservative. I’ve never voted. No one cared.

I’ve lost numerous friends because I don’t hate Trump or his supporters. I don’t hate Obama or his supporters. I don’t like policies and customs that contradict my biblically conservative worldview. I don’t hate Joe Biden. I don’t like the policies, the high gas prices, the inflation, the demonization of working-class Trump supporters, the condescending attitude toward black people, or the persecution of January 6 protestors.

Years ago, before social media trained adults to act like children, I was a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News. My biblical worldview wasn’t controversial and dangerous. I was friends and co-workers with atheists. Blocked and charged interrupted lifelong friendships. CNN and MSNBC view me as problematic and will never have me on air again.

I don’t even vote. The politician I criticized the most and most viciously was Sarah Palin, a Republican, the right-wing AOC.

I’ve been blocked and charged by the left. This isn’t a personal whine. I’ve never sought the approval of the mainstream establishment. I’m whining because the blocked and charged contagion is destroying America. It’s dividing us. We no longer exchange ideas. We’re locked in silos constructed by the social media matrix. As long as that’s the case, our destruction is inevitable.

Big Tech killed America.