Mic Drop Cruelty
By Tom Gilbreath
The words must have seemed clever. That’s probably why she sent them out into the world. The pediatrician wrote, “May all visitors, children, non-MAGA voters and pets be safe and dry. Kerr County MAGA voted to gut FEMA. They deny climate change. May they get what they voted for. Bless their hearts.”
After losing her job and receiving widespread scorn, she apologized for the post. She explained that people had “the false impression that I made it after the devastating loss of life was known.” She said she posted it before she knew “so many precious lives were lost to the terrible tragedy.” What did she mean by “so many”? How many deaths does it take to be a “devastating loss of life”? How many lives must be lost before we see it as a tragedy and not fodder for jokes and political gut punches?
She acknowledged the possibility of a high casualty count in the first post. “May all visitors, children, non-MAGA voters and pets be safe and dry.” It sounds as if she approved of Kerr County Republicans drowning. Even their pets’ lives were more important than theirs. This is just one individual, and she apologized. But it illustrates the new mindset. Most of us associate “pediatrician” with care and empathy. At the very least, you would expect such a person to show wisdom and restraint. But not these days.
In today’s world, it’s all about creating “mic drop” moments. Headlines proclaim that one famous person “destroyed” another famous person “in one sentence.” Comedians used to work for laughs, but increasingly, they go after applause. The difference is crucial. Political demagoguery is far easier than comedy. How much good does it do to condemn school bullies while we applaud bullies working in late-night TV? Meanness has become the order of the hour.
A person well-connected enough to have been appointed by the mayor of a major city to the town’s food insecurity board, implied that because most of the campers were white, they deserved what they got. Most stories about her don’t mention what she said in response to the pushback she received. She wrote, “God washed away those little….” I’ll stop the quote there because I don’t want to post even the first letter of the word that came next. Some feminists have tried to reclaim the word, but when it is used like she used it, there’s no way to take it as anything but an ugly slur against women. And she used that word to describe little girls who had died awful drowning deaths only hours before. To make it worse, she attempted to convince us that God was angry at them for being white.
As usual, politicians and commentators made the tragedy political. They speculated that the Weather Service in Central Texas was understaffed due to budget cuts. It turns out that at the time of the floods and before, the Weather Service was fully staffed and even had extra people on duty. Sadly, that’s normal politics. I’m more concerned with the vitriol and the death wishes poured out on children.
It reminds me of the time just before another flood. Genesis 6:5 says, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” In verse 13, God said, “The earth is filled with violence.” And in Matthew 24:37, Jesus said, “As the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”
So, even in the bad news, there’s good news. Something wonderful is on the way!
