Anything election related, anyway.
Four residents of Chicago kidnapped and tortured a special-needs man, broadcasting it live on Facebook while ranting against President Trump.
This is worse than the gang that pulled the Trump supporter out of his car and beat him in the middle of the street. It’s worse than the abusive mother who pretended to kick out her own son because he voted Trump in the mock elections at his elementary school.
This is barbarism. I don’t care what side of the aisle you fall on. It is barbarism, pure and simple. Civilization cannot exist unless people like this are exiled, executed, or locked behind bars.
Happily, all four of the alleged kidnappers and torturers have been arrested by the police, and the victim has been treated for his wounds and is now with family. So at the very least, this story ends happily.
I cannot express how furious this makes me. To keep this post from turning into a barely coherent rant, I’ll forbear.
It’s also very tempting to analyze this from a political angle: to see it as either vindicating or condemning certain political views. I could go for a long while about how we as a country got to this point, and who is to blame for it. Such a post would rally the people who agree with me politically and alienate the people who don’t.
But the truth is that this is so much larger than just politics. Fascism thrives when society enables the worst elements of human nature, which exist on both the Left and the Right. We can see those elements here. The problem is not the other side, whether that’s blacks, whites, Progressives, Conservatives, Liberals, Republicans, or whatever. The problem is the cycle itself, which feeds the worst in all of us.
We really need to move beyond this madness. But unless we come together, this nation will never heal. I hope we can all come together in condemning this for what it is: a heinous act of barbarism.
