From Bluesky to Drones

I value friendship over politics, as a general proposition. I’ve terminated contact with a few people because I was repulsed by their political views, but in those cases the connection had become marginal; I was in contact with them only through social media, on which they posted mainly or only political rants. Those were exceptions to broad rules that friendships usually include something more than politics, and that political differences, if they aren’t just put aside, can be discussed without getting bent out of shape.

For a moment, at a party recently, a conversation looked like it was about to go sideways. My interlocutor, a conservative escapee from academia whom I’d just met, said he assumed I was conservative too, given some publishing history we’d discussed. I told him I was a Republican-turned-Democrat, to which he exclaimed “Really?” and, when I mentioned having worked with David Frum, my interlocutor expressed bewilderment about people who’d abandoned their conservative beliefs. Then we got interrupted by passersby, and when conversation resumed, it was about something else.

Splice Today’s proprietor recently asked what I thought of Bluesky, to which I’d decamped while cutting back on X, formerly Twitter, soon thereafter deactivating my X account. (At this writing, I’m about to cross the one-month deadline where that deactivation becomes irreversible.) I gave a favorable reply about Bluesky, that it was valuable for monitoring current events like South Korea’s political crisis; and that its user base leaned left but would probably become more ideologically diverse over time. I soon became less enthused, seeing on my Bluesky feed celebrations of the insurance CEO’s murder. Bluesky, I came to think, is like methadone, a habit-forming substitute for a worse addiction such as heroin or X.

I’m making a point of reading more books as a substitute for scrolling, though internet habits have affected how I read print, such that toggling between different paper volumes is more common. Two intriguing upcoming books I’m reading review copies of are: Mixed Signals: Alien Communication Across the Iron Curtain, by Rebecca Charbonneau; and Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation, by Bennett Parten. My friend Jamik Ligon, who’s written for Splice Today, has published a memoir about running I’ve ordered titled Every Runner, Every Day.

Having wide-ranging reading material is valuable for the same reason as having friends and acquaintances with a wide range of perspectives; to avoid getting too narrow in your interests and thinking. I’ve tried to keep that in mind as I’ve read or heard friends state opinions that I consider bizarre, such as that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are sympathizers of Israel’s enemies, despite having provided billions in military resources to Israel and helped coordinate Arab allies to defend against attacks by Iran. (“With enemies like that, who needs friends?” Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, reportedly said after meeting an anti-Semitic Czarist Russian official enthused about the Jews leaving.)

I haven’t mentioned Donald Trump in any of the above, but there’s no avoiding him for long in discussing current events. My party interlocutor seemed like he might have some understanding of my disaffection from the Republican Party if it were purely a reaction to Trump but was less amenable on hearing that I’d been veering from Republicans and the right long before Trump became a political contender. For my part, I’ve watched the current Trump transition with as much of an open mind as one could plausibly ask for, given my long criticisms of Trump as candidate, president and ex-president. I’m pleased by the prospect of Marco Rubio as secretary of state, not only as a counterpoint to isolationist tendencies but because it elevates a plausible rival to J.D. Vance as Trump’s expected successor. I’m revolted by some other appointments, particularly Pete Hegseth, whom even if one were to hold blameless for sexual misconduct, and put aside his messy personal life broadly, is a ludicrously unqualified choice.

I spoke to a former high-ranking official of New York State, who said she might want to get back into elected office, and the topic of drones over New Jersey and elsewhere came up. I expressed some doubt as to whether they’re real, and she said, “Of course they’re real.” I’m not saying there’s no unusual drone activity going on, but how easy it is to mistake ordinary phenomena for anomalies was underscored when Larry Hogan, the former governor of Maryland, posted a “drone” video in which some of the lights in the sky were the recognizably constellation Orion.

—Kenneth Silber is author of In DeWitt’s Footsteps: Seeing History on the Erie Canal. Follow him on Bluesky