In the month of August, mass shootings in El Paso, Dayton, and now West Texas left not only death and devastation, but also heartbreak and outrage in their wake.
Before all the victims were tended to, we politicized tragedies in a crude attempt to score political points. On social media, we rewarded Americans for lunging at each other’s throats with likes and retweets. We applauded each other for impugning false motives and dismissed “thoughts and prayers” from those with whom we politically disagree. In exercises of shameful straw-manning, we equated the values of the average Republican or Democrat with the political motivations of deranged sociopaths. We prioritized political victory over all else — even our fellow Americans’ well-being.
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