The first video was the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi, the husband of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, back in October. The second video was of the violent beat down of Tyre Nichols by five Memphis police officers earlier this month. Aside from being repeatedly punched and kicked, Nichols was also repeatedly hit with a baton, pepper sprayed and tased. Nichols died of his injuries three days later.
There are some differences between the two videos. One victim is an 82-year-old white man and the other is a young black man who would have turned 30 this year had police exercised a modicum of good judgment. In the Pelosi video, the police responded appropriately and subdued Pelosi's attacker after he was hit over the head with a hammer whereas in the Nichols video, they broke every rule and seemed determined to break every bone in Nichols' body. Despite his injuries and the trauma he will endure for the rest of his life, he is still with us. The same cannot be said for Nichols.
The two common denominators of these videos are cruelty and a loss of trust.
In the Nichols video, the cruelty is obvious with every punch, kick, tase, pepper spray and use of a weapon. In the Pelosi video, the cruelty lies mainly with people not in the video - Republicans and Trump supporters. Let us remember how instead of showing compassion, Republicans and Trump supporters gleefully mocked the attack on Pelosi and engaged in conspiracy theories. Donald Trump, Jr., Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Dinesh D'Souza all derived pleasure in Pelosi's suffering and their fans loved every moment of it. Worse still, if not for their insistence that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, then Paul Pelosi would never have been attacked in the first place as his attacker went to Pelosi's home to make her confess that the 2020 election had been stolen.
Then there is the loss of trust. How can the public trust police officers if a critical mass of them are prepared to beat someone to death or wantonly deploy violence? Even if Nichols had been guilty of reckless driving (and there's no evidence at this point to suggest that he did so), the crime did not fit the punishment and did not warrant the loss of his life much less any bodily harm.
When it comes to Pelosi, how can the public trust a political party and advocates of its two time (possibly three time) presidential standard bearer for cheering on an act of attempted murder or at the very least make excuses for it?
The awful truth is that the world is full of a lot of cruel and untrustworthy people. Even worse these cruel and untrustworthy people hold positions of power, authority and influence. But what I fear more than anything else is despite the cruelty and untrustworthiness of these people coming into view (whether on camera or not) that there is a very good chance that they will not be held to account for their cruelty and untrustworthy behavior. In which case, there will be more cruelty and untrustworthy behavior to come.
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