What happens now?

You're right to call Trump out on his lack of fairness, his one-sidedness, and the partisan nature of his speech. But by calling the right out on their capitalizing on a tragedy to further their political agenda, you are doing exactly the same thing. BOTH side routinely capitalize on tragedies to push their own political agendas. Both sides do it in an unfair and uncharitable way.

Politicians do it to advance their careers. The media does it to support their team. Ordinary citizens do it because they are being duped by politicians, the media, and their favorite pundits. They are mere pawns in the game politicians are playing. Many of them choose to live in bubbles, to have their views re-enforced by talking heads, and only listen to opposing views to find fodder they can spin in such a way as to re-enforce their point of view.

Fair-minded people who strive for objectivity are few and far between. Whenever anybody does take a stab at fair-mindedness, they are shouted down by their own side and accused of being in bed with the enemy.

This is what comes next. I don’t know just how much this will energize them, but this is the play.

Yep. Usually when one side does something that makes themselves look bad, the other side jumps on the opportunity to burn through goodwill. The "left" behaved badly by mocking a dude, so now the "right" has a pass to behave badly without looking worse than the left. Taking the high road strategically could be a better strategy long term, but that requires patience, and nobody wants to be the one taking the "high road" if it feels like the other side might be getting away with bad behavior in the short term. Both sides burn through goodwill in different ways but usually for things that aren't even worth it, like a counterproductive policy, or mocking people online. This is equilibrium, and it doesn't look like it will be changing any time soon.

by calling the right out on their capitalizing on a tragedy to further their political agenda, you are doing exactly the same thing.

What are you talking about?

Calling someone out for what they’re doing does not mean I’m doing the same thing, that’s just silly.

Both sides routinely capitalize on tragedies, what I’m talking about is the egregious way the political right does it for which there is no legitimate comparison on the left.

On the left, when we criticize the absurd, dangerous, and harmful actions of the right, we focus almost exclusively on actions taken by elected leaders in positions of real power and/or people of significant influence. The most noteworthy and common target of which being the president of the United States himself.

On the right, when they attack the left they focus almost exclusively on random people on social media who have no following, or nut jobs who in many cases aren’t even on the left. To this day, many very prominent right wing figures still claim “they” (“the left”) tried to kill Donald Trump by referencing a 20 year old kid who by all accounts had no discernible political leanings and just wanted to kill someone famous.

It’s egregiously disingenuous. Everyone knows the internet is a cesspool and crazy people will always exist within any large group of people. Trying to paint a political side based only on its most extreme examples will get you whatever results you want. That isn’t what you do when you are dealing in good faith. But that’s the point, this isn’t good faith and anyone who has been paying attention can see it coming a mile away.

Usually when one side does something that makes themselves look bad, the other side jumps on the opportunity to burn through goodwill. The "left" behaved badly by mocking a dude, so now the "right" has a pass to behave badly without looking worse than the left.

See my previous post (#4)

I'm talking about the left and right in extremely broad terms. Obviously a political leader should have more accountability than randos on Twitter, but then again, there are a lot more randos on Twitter than elected officials. And who elected Trump? A bunch of randos.

But I digress. My point is just that both sides "burn through goodwill," and regardless of whether social media comments should harm the public perception of the Democratic party, I think that it does. That's why I'm saying goodwill is basically being "spent" for nothing, they've barely done anything to advance their goals. If the Democrats on social media just chilled a bit, it would give a lot more leeway to Democratic politicians to pass more aggressive policies. It's probably because social media skews young that more insane people on the left have a platform to make themselves look bad. Crazies exist on the right, but they're mostly too old to understand how technology works.

What happens now?

Well, approximately 125 people are shot everyday in the US.

So since "now", which was September 10th, another couple of hundred have perhaps succumbed to the super safe freely available bullet.

Left, right doesn't make the slightest bit of difference.

So in this instance the right was noticeably hoisted by it's own petard and will inevitably blame the left.

Though like I suggested, anyone can own a gun and pull a trigger...They don't need a label.

Such is the Ununited States.

My point is just that both sides "burn through goodwill," and regardless of whether social media comments should harm the public perception of the Democratic party, I think that it does.

But that’s the whole problem. I'm not disagreeing with you about what is the case regarding the overall perception, I'm pointing out that that perception is not reality, and therefore anyone who acts as if there is not a meaningful difference between the two parties and/or movements are themselves complicit in spreading harmful misinformation.

If the Democrats on social media just chilled a bit...

But we all know this will never be the case, so whatever follows is pointless.

And it will never be the case - not because we're talking about democrats - but because we're talking about human beings in an age where anyone can add their voice behind the anonymity of their own screen. It doesn't matter what category of person we lump them into, any large number of people will always have shit posters, so concluding anything about a movement based only on the bottom filth of thier posters is grossly disingenuous.

I've sometimes wondered about serial killings and school shootings as fads,

After Luigi killed the CEO, I idly wondered whether a fad of killing more visible members of American society would occur more often.

I don't 'think it has yet, and maybe it won't.

If it doesn't well, what happens now is the same old what has happened before when people have been killed,

Talked about in the news, social media, used as political tool,

Ideally though, the Right doesn't burn down various parts of their community in protest.