I'm trying to roll in a the muck a lot less. Can be hard to do when their smears are so blatant and full of shit, like it urges me on to clear my name and point out the lies, but I am trying to focus on it less. It's why I took a polite route when asking the 20 or so journalists who called me out if they could disprove my article and name just a single openly right leaning writer at a mainstream gaming centric website, and instead of answering they just smear my name, lie, and find roundabout ways to not answer. They literally cannot answer my question, so those are the wins I'd rather collect.
Social media makes it easy for us all to become assholes, but in recent months I've tried to rely less on name calling and more on wit and well phrased questions to prove my points or highlight hypocrisies or whatever else. Sometimes I slip and focus too much on the negative, but I am trying.
My career is doing well, and they can't argue against my articles, that's what I need to focus my attention on.