Renee Good was still bleeding out when the first posts on X began to frame the incident according to their partisan lights. The frenzy of partisan hackery that followed should have set off alarm bells from one end of the country to the other, but instead only served to fan the flames of the partisan conflagration.
There's the speed of sound, the speed of light, and then there's the fastest-moving object in the universe: the internet, and the speed with which it can warp, bend, twist, and mutilate the facts.
Note that I didn't say "the truth." If you haven't noticed (under a rock? asleep for 20 years?), there is no such thing as "objective truth" anymore. Both sides claim to possess it, which either means one side or the other is wrong or both sides are full of s**t. Since both sides claim to be right, good luck sorting that out.
It's characterized by the simple banality of mindless tribalism. Less than 48 hours after the shooting of Good occurred, every internet partisan has fallen into one of two camps. She was a "terrorist" or an innocent mother of three who was brutally murdered by (choose one) the Gestapo, the secret police, "lawless" ICE, or Trump's "personal paramilitary force."
What sets the Minneapolis shooting apart is the instant reaction not just by internet ruffians but by supposedly responsible people in power. From the president, to the governor of Minnesota, to Minneapolis's mayor and high-ranking politicians, the instant, gut reactions came before a single investigator had begun to examine any evidence, take any statements, weigh any testimony, even look closely at the video that so many have examined "frame-by-frame" and found the unmistakable "proof" of whatever they want to prove.
Mindless, illogical, and unbearably sad.
Border Czar Tom Homan, who has been known to throw some partisan punches in his time, was one of the most restrained public officials who responded to the Minnesota shooting.
"It would be unprofessional to comment on what I think happened in that situation,” Homan told CBS News on Wednesday. “Let the investigation play out and hold people accountable based on the investigation.”
Is that really too much to ask? Of course it is. When fighting a nuclear war, who strikes first and hardest comes out ahead. Everybody loses, but at least you "own" the left (or right).
A Free Press editorial states what should be obvious.
Mistakes and distortions like those that followed Wednesday’s shooting are hard to avoid at a moment when so many public figures prejudge every news story. Partisans witness messy events like a rapid standoff-turned-shooting and instantly cram them into neat lines that confirm their worst impressions of their political opponents. There’s a large audience for the quick takes among the polarized public. But that doesn’t absolve officials of their responsibility to wait for the facts and state them clearly.
I will be accused of the deadly sin of "bothsiderism," a badge I wear with honor. That doesn't make me a "squishy moderate," or someone who can't make up their mind. I have been a proud man of the right since the mid-1970s. However, I care more about the country than I do party or ideology.
And the hell of it is, the vast majority of people reading this know that the points I'm making are good points and may even agree with some of them, but are constrained from saying so for fear of being drummed out of the "Kool Konservative Kids Klub." That's how the partisan internet is destroying America. There is no room for deviating an inch from dogma. Instead of healthy, passionate, open debate about the people and personalities in the news, we have brain-dead partisans on both sides policing speech just as rigorously and with as much vigor as any Soviet commissar.
This is not going to end well for you or America. I'm relieved I won't be around to see it.
