A Facebook friend (the childhood friend of a cousin) posted something that, for the last 85 days or so, is easy to find on one's FB feed: a 25 word-or-less rant condemning Trump and calling anyone who voted for him an idiot. Again, nothing that all forms of media haven't been saturated with since the election.
I either accidentally or absent mindedly expanded the post and read the comments. Mostly a chorus of vulgar "amens", but one lady made a comment about Trump only being in office 9 days and cutting the guy some slack. Now I understand that it's precisely what Trump has done in those first days that has many upset. "Let's wait and see" isn't going to be an acceptable strategy to those who think the man is burning down the country.
Did anyone respond with that sort of information? I.e. "Hey, we're upset exactly because this guy has done so many things we oppose in such a short time." No.
Instead the woman was vulgarly insulted multiple times and one of the posters hoped for this lady to be sexually assaulted. I don't know if these people knew each other or were simply connected through our mutual 'friend'.
I post items that could be deemed controversial at times, but I stay away from online sparring because it's generally fruitless. But I couldn't help coming to the defense of this woman. In an exchange of comments, mostly questions for my part, I tried to call attention to the inconsistency of calling a person (Trump) out for his behavior while emulating it and calling for others to be assaulted.
After a few exchanges, one of the people on the thread calmed down and admitted that she had gotten carried away by her emotions and the group's shared upset. She IM'd me directly and we talked a little about who we voted for in the past. She even sent me a friend request (which I turned down - I don't really know this person yet). In any event, we listened to each other without changing any minds.
But the rest of the thread continued on, culminating in the commentor who had advocated for the assault of the woman who didn't agree with the group, commenting that he hoped I had a daughter and that she was also assaulted.
This is the mindset that many, many people are in, and it does not appear to be abating. This is indeed a frightening time to live in this country.
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