Think of how many substantial efforts could have been mounted

Burning Up the Bunting: What’s in a Handle?

Mercifully, the 18-month U.S. presidential election cycle has come to an end. Think of how many substantial efforts could have been mounted — from infrastructure improvements to educational, economic, and environmental efforts — by the army of partisans who worked so diligently to persuade you to think as they do. All those get-out-the-vote volunteers. All those potholes. We’ve missed our chance again.

At the peak of ballot bedlam on Tuesday night, there were 327,000 tweets moving per minute. Those things may have flown by so quickly Tuesday that you missed the interesting divide between those in the industry! the industry! who do — and those who don’t — think it’s good to trumpet their political preferences on Twitter and other media. And in the most colorful language.

This is something some of us in publishing have quietly discussed for months now. It can be curious when someone usually so articulate on a publishing panel suddenly pummels us with their crudest tweets about national leaders they’ve never met.

I invite you to think of people you know in the biz who did not do this Tuesday. They, too, might have been tweeting and pinning and Google+-ing and FB-ing and Tumbl-ing their views. But if they were, they weren’t doing it on their professional accounts. Not on the same handles with which they interact with clients and bosses and associates — that would be us — and with others from whom they might like some respect.

What’s important is that you make a conscious decision for yourself whether your most vociferous political curses or cheers belong on the conference-room table. Because that’s where your stuff just landed. And if you seriously start thinking of how many colleagues weren’t there swearing along with you — and then picture them around that table looking at you — you might realize that “everybody” is by no means doing it.

The publishing community has a vibrant life online. And since the analysts all woke up Wednesday yelling “demographics!” at us, it’s not a bad idea to acknowledge what a diverse-o-rama we are in books. We are not a choir to whom you are preaching. We may not agree with you at all. And even if we do, we may not need you to share sensitive beliefs with us in the vulgarity of the shopping-mall vernacular.

If you want to vote with your tweets on your professional account, this is your decision. But I’d suggest you not cave in to what you think “everybody” is doing. Because everybody is not doing it.

Steven Inskeep