“All new highs are positive, except for the final one,”

Yesterday, many saw images of gruesome violence in their algorithmically generated feeds. Some expressed outrage, acting as though this was an anomaly, and perhaps it was. Perhaps they have not spent the past almost-two years opening Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram or whatever else and being greeted by images of charred Palestinian children. Maybe the endless stream of unspeakable darkness has made them numb. Or maybe, like many pundits and elected officials, they are aware of the horrors visited upon Gaza, but to them, those are acceptable losses – bodies, but not real people. State violence is the background hum of this country, after all. It does not count as the “political violence” so many politicians and pundits rushed to decry yesterday.