The social media age has made it possible for any person, at any time, to broadcast and publish their thoughts to the entire world with the push of a button.
On the plus side, this means many people who never would have been heard can now be heard. On the negative side, this means many people who never would have been heard can now be heard.
Social media is awash in conspiracism, hatred of all varieties and the proliferation of false information.
No doubt, social media is both a window into how flawed people have always been and a self-perpetuating catalyst for further madness.
This past week, we have seen professionals, elected officials, doctors, professors, high school teachers, firefighters, students and even an employee of the Secret Service among those celebrating the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk or attacking those who are mourning his senseless murder.
To take one subset, a number of people entrusted to teach young people have been caught celebrating the killing.
A teacher in South Carolina was fired for posting, “Thoughts and prayers to his children, but IMHO America became greater today. There, I said it.”
In Iowa, another teacher posted, “1 Nazi down.”
In Oregon, yet another teacher who is also a city councilmember, said on social media, “Hearing that Charlie Kirk got shot and died really brightened up my day. Nobody deserves it, but some are asking for it.”
In Virginia, a teacher wrote, “I hope he suffered through all of it.”
And in New York, a teacher compared Kirk to Joseph Goebbels and wrote, “Good riddance to bad garbage.”
There are many more examples and many more videos of teachers expressing their hatreds and bloodlust, but you get the idea.
The wave of reactions against Kirk is reminiscent of the gleeful celebration of many on the left when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down late last year.
Social media, then, too, was flooded with morally bankrupt leftists lauding the killing and fawning over the killer. This includes a University of Pennsylvania professor who described the killer as the “icon we all need and deserve.”
Leftists likewise flooded social media with regret last year that Donald Trump wasn’t assassinated. “Shoot — If only he would’ve had his scope sighted in correctly,” said one middle school employee on social media.
You can see the pattern.
But we’re also seeing the same thing playing out on the right, as some try to match the harmful energy of the left with some of their own.
“Charlie Kirk getting shot is the shot heard around the country,” reads one X post that received over 300,000 views. “I’m ready for civil war. You want a fight and you’re going to get it.”
“Charlie Kirk being assassinated is the American Reichstag fire,” reads another post seen over 3 million times. “It is time for a complete crackdown on the left. Every Democratic politician must be arrested and the party banned under RICO. Every libtard commentator must be shut down. Stochastic terrorism. They caused this.”
Other widely read posts declare, “This is war,” while others called for the Democratic Party declared a terrorist organization or for “the Air Force sent” against Democratic cities.
This is all dangerous lunacy that makes it more likely some cranks will lash out in the real world.
As revealed by social media, far too many Americans, even those who know better, are comfortable dehumanizing those with different thoughts than them.
There are no easy answers here, but we need smarter and better public discourse. We need all sides of the political spectrum to better police themselves. And we certainly need people to count to ten before posting every ridiculous thought that pops into their head.
Until we do that, we are headed down a path we will all regret.
