Thomas Massie's photo, as Charlie rightly points out, was tweeted with no purpose in mind other than to trigger people. It may appeal to about 3% of Twitter users who aren't bots, but there is no substantial constituency for such an image; there is, however, a constituency for people who like that such an image will piss off the people they hate. When it comes to rather loathsome performative displays like this, or even things like goofy white supremacist rallies, which also lack a substantial constituency but are excellent triggers, the question is how to handle them, and I'm not entirely sure how, but I'm inclined toward simply ignoring them. Like completely. Trolling abhors a vacuum.

It is very tempting to send Thomas Massie a Tweet back that he'll never see. It's tempting to retweet it along with a snappy critique of the image. But I don't think doing either is helpful, especially retweeting. When we see people acting like assholes, especially on social media where personal interaction is absent, it is sorely tempting to call them out; the only problem, though, is that is exactly what they want you to do. If Massie had any shame, that image wouldn't be on his Twitter feed. Engaging these people on social media just magnifies them beyond any degree they're worth. Much of their engagement, their likes, is driven by bots. Some of us get off on others' approval of our social media feeds, and some of us are broken individuals like Massie who get off on pissing people off with our Tweets.

We need to figure out how to come to grips with the people who have always been among us, but were rightly obscure and irrelevant before the advent of social media. If Massie sent this Tweet and no one reacted, what lesson would that impart to him?