Again, our photographer took this in Minnesota. I had the location wrong the first time. Apologies. pic.twitter.com/OwuCt7WAUr
— Patricia Zengerle (@ReutersZengerle) November 6, 2016
Here we are. One day before Election Day. This has been, without a doubt, the wildest, weirdest year of American politics that *hopefully* we’ll ever experience in our great Republic. As someone who cares about the United States and the peace of our very divided nation, I hope that 10 years from now we can all sit back as thriving fat cats and laugh at how silly the 2016 Presidential Election was. I hope that I’m not in some sort of internment hard labor camp building a wall along the southern border of America because, once upon a time, I was a blogger for a marginally successful men’s lifestyle website who wasn’t afraid to share my politics opinions and wisecracks thanks to the free speech protections afforded to my by the First Amendment.
I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I do know that pics like this, however, scare the shit out of me. This man at a Trump rally is wearing a t-shirt suggesting that journalists be hung and killed via lynch mob for simply doing their job — seeking truth and demanding accountability for power in their reporting. It was spotted by a Reuters photographer at a Trump rally in Minnesota.
You know how terrifying that is? Suppressing the flow of information by murdering political dissidents is what cowardly, iron-fisted dictators in third world countries do. There’s a dark trail of greedy, power-hungry maniacs who have embraced such evil, killing millions in their bloodlust for power: Hitler. Stalin. Mussolini. Pol Pot. Kim Jong-il. Mugabe.
Those names are enemies of America and American values.
“May you live in interesting times” is a curse. Regardless of the election outcome tomorrow, no one deserves to die for reporting facts.