Social media’s ghouls infect us all

It’s not a game. No one’s keeping score on how many cheap-shot points you land on social media.

And the endless bile just cheapens us all.

Over the weekend, a nightmare unfolded in Minnesota. Democrat politicians and their families were targeted by an attacker disguised as a police officer, leaving two people dead, and two seriously injured, including Minnesota Speaker Melissa Hortman.

But these being the times that they are, conspiracy theories abounded, with no less than U.S. Sen. Mike Lee chirping off-the-wall theories and humour about the attacks on social media. He finally took the comments down Tuesday.

That is the point we seem to be at now in life and politics.

Monday, U.S. Senator Tina Smith’s deputy chief of staff Ed Shelleby sent this email to Lee’s staff.

“I knew Melissa Hortman. Many people in this office did. She was a longtime friend of Senator Smith’s, who had seen her hours before she was murdered. So you’ll forgive my candour as I speak through enormous grief.

“It is important for your office to know how much additional pain you’ve caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend. I am not sure what compelled you or your boss to say any of those things, which, in addition to being unconscionable, also may very well be untrue.

“But that is not the point. Why would you use the awesome power of a United States Senate office to compound people’s grief? Is this how your team measures success? Using the office of U.S. senator to post not just one but a series of jokes about an assassination — is that a successful day of work on Team Lee? Did you come into the office Monday and feel proud of the work you did over the weekend?

“Let’s recap Saturday so you fully understand what Minnesota was going through. Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered. Sen. Hoffman and his wife were shot numerous times and remain hospitalized. By the grace of God it appears they will survive. Senators are discovered to be on a hit list of an armed man on the run — Sen. Lee’s colleagues. And the decision of the office of Sen. Mike Lee was not to publicly condemn the violence or to express condolences to her shattered children — it was to intimate that Melissa and Mark somehow deserved this? By making jokes? Did you have any consideration for the survivors in her family? For the Hoffmans in the hospital? For their families?

“You exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband to post some sick burns about Democrats. Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweet(s)? Have you absolutely no conscience? No decency?

“I pray to God that none of you ever go through anything like this. I pray that Sen. Lee and your office begin to see the people you work with in this building as colleagues and human beings. And I pray that if, God forbid, you ever find yourselves having to deal with anything similar, you find yourselves on the receiving end of the kind of grace and compassion that Sen. Mike Lee could not muster.

“Lastly, I suggest you take a few minutes today to read about Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. They were remarkable people. Here’s a story in the St. Paul Pioneer Press called Melissa Hortman: Once a teenager with a job making burritos, she became a powerful MN lawmaker who trained service dogs.

“She was a force. And a human being. And I beg of you to exercise some restraint on social media as we continue to grieve.”

Well said.

Let’s hope Lee’s type of contagion stays out of Canadian politics.

We must do everything we can to keep it out of Canadian life.