Zach is Obama and McCain.

I think that the Internet, social networking sites in particular, has done strange things to our political discourse.

As the election looms near, I can't help but notice the preponderance of political material being put out there by my "friends." I use quotation marks because I am referring to "friends" in the facebook sense of the word. The way that our political opinions are now expressed manifests itself in several ways on the facebook. I will list them in ascending level of craziness.

1. Changing your profile picture to a campaign poster - This is the most benign, conservative level of support. It's equivalent, I think, to putting a sign in your yard. Many reasonable people do this sort of thing in real life, and many reasonable people also do it on facebook.

2. Declaring your "support" for a candidate - This is done either by downloading a special application or by joining one (or more) support groups. This is the real-world equivalent of putting bumper stickers on your car. Each group equals one bumper sticker, so you can effectively judge the level of passion/fanaticism this way.

3. Displaying your middle name as "Hussein" - I don't want to be partisan here, but I just haven't seen anyone call himself Greg "Sidney" Olson yet. I'm not sure if this has a real-life equivalent, but I'd probably equate it to complaining loudly and often about Fox News or, if you're a conservative, the media elite.

4. Posting "news" stories - This is one that I've engaged in myself, I'm slightly ashamed to say (though I'm sure it won't stop me from doing it again). Most stories come from some ultra-biased blog and read as if the writer watched ten minutes of news, read five similar-minded blogs and expressed the same thing they read but with more vitriol. Wow, this is hitting close to home. I don't know what the real world analogue is.

5. Insane status updates/Fragmented Wall-to-Wall Debates - This one, the craziest, is by far my favorite. It delights me in large part because of the peculiar syntax and grammatical structure (or lack thereof) that facebook status updates create. The format is "Zach is_________." You are now able to remove "is," but some people haven't realized it yet or are too lazy to do so. This results in wonderful expressions such as "Dorothy is all these MUTHA FUCKIN asses who vote for McCAIN you shouldnt be able to vote at all and are probably racist" or "Paul OBAMA is a CAPPUCCINO sipping, New York Times reading LIBERAL who isnt fit to lead and even his running mate thinks so, REPLY for citation." Believe me, I didn't make these up. I doubt I could. The real-world equivalent is the person who attempts to engage every person he comes in contact with in debate, but once that engagement occurs, he turns red in the face, folds his arms and sputters out the most superficial of talking points. Well-known examples that come to mind are Sean Hannity or Joy Behar. Except, put their dispositions into the mind of someone who doesn't talk for a living.

Though I'm sympathetic to the cause they champion, I admit that much of this seems to have begun with some the Ron Paul supporters. When perusing the comments sections of online newspapers or blogs, I'd often find an incoherent tirade with SPORADIC ALL CAPS and references to THE CFR and THE BILDERBERG GROUP and concluding with a triumphant, FOR FREEDOM RON PAUL 2008. I'm not sure if it began with the Ron Paul people, or if I just began to notice it with them, but now I see that this strange and disturbing way of communicating has spread to supporters of all political stripes. Or maybe, the conspiratorial portion of my brain says, they are McCain people posing as Obama people and vice versa. I almost hope so.