I have an old classmate who is a US Capitol Police Officer

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Knew him from elementary through high school. Played little league with him, went to CCD classes with him, sat at the same lunch table at him. He was always a very nice, easy going and friendly guy.

Naturally I friended him on Facebook; unfortunately I soon found out he was the type of guy who liked to share everything and anything to his page. Not political stuff, but just general pop culture bullshit, and because my feed was becoming overwhelmed with his shares I ended up “unfollowing” him—meaning I was still friends with him but his posts would no longer appear on my page. Nothing personal though.

After Wednesday’s events and the news that a USCP officer had been killed in the riots, I became a little worried so I decided to check on his page.

I admit I’m more than a little concerned at what I founded.

Thankfully he was not the officer killed; and he did have several posts up mourning his fellow colleague. I have no idea whether he knew him personally or not.

But what was disturbing was that many of his other posts had clear Trumpist styled inflammatory rhetoric demonizing Democrats and President-elect Biden; he also mentioned that he had joined Parler.

And this was not just before the January 6th riots; it continued afterwards and even after news of the fallen officer had broken. So there appeared to be no great awakening on his part.

This cognitive dissonance baffles me; what sort of person mourns the loss of his colleague but also sympathizes with his killers?

And it’s quite sad that it’s very likely that an old friend of mine who I had good memories of may have been one of those officers who welcomed insurrectionists into the building he was supposed to protect with open arms and allowed them to denigrate our democracy like that.

I honestly don’t get it. We live in insane times.