A person who didn’t stab anybody over the weekend.
Jeremy Joseph Christian stabbed three people on a train in Portland on Friday. Two of them died. Christian was allegedly harassing brown people on the train. Two people stepped up to try to protect those people. One of them, 53-year-old army veteran Rick Best, was stabbed and died of his injuries.
Christian was arraigned on murder charges in Portland on Tuesday. He showed no remorse. “Free speech or die, Portland. You got no safe place,” Christian said on the way to court. “You call it terrorism, I call it patriotism, you hear me? Die,” Christian said in court. “Death to the enemies of America,” Christian said in court.
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In response, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, took to his personal Twitter account this morning to say this to the nation.
Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017
His official @Potus managed account had a slightly more appropriate message, though it was put up after days of silence and in response to the stabbing. Both Trump accounts have been silent on Christian’s outburst yesterday.
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Kathy Griffin did a photo shoot where she severed Donald Trump’s head in effigy, in the name of freedom of expression. Jeremy Joseph Christian stabbed two people to death in the name of freedom of expression.
If you have an 11-year-old who has a hard time understanding the former but is able to properly contextualize the latter, you are a terrible f**king parent and I worry for your children.
If you are a grown-ass person who has been able to gin up social media stomping outrage over the former but has remained silent and “prayerful” over the latter, you are a terrible f**king person and I worry for your soul.
We live in a country where the people who most feel like free speech is “under attack” are willing to violently attack people, while the people who actually use their words are attacked for them.
America is failing because most people won’t in fact stand up on a train, because we’re afraid that the Trump crazies might stab us to death. And they might. But the question is not “what are you willing to kill for.” Anybody can sever a head. If you want to stop Trump and his ilk, the only relevant question is “what are you willing to die for?”
Trump wins because people are more like Donald Trump than Rick Best. The #Resistance loses because people are more like Kathy Griffin than Rick Best. I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.