I was deeply disappointed in humanity today—and considering I’ve lived through 9/11, the Iraq War, Facebook comment sections, and the invention of “influencer marketing,” that’s saying something.

After the shooting of Charlie Kirk, what could have been a collective pause—a moment for Americans to breathe, reflect, and maybe even mourn—degenerated into something far more familiar and far uglier: a national sport of rage-flinging. Instead of grief, we got gleeful scorekeeping. Instead of mourning, we got memes. Instead of humanity, we got hashtags.

The right instantly screamed: “This is what the left wanted.” The left hissed back: “He deserved it.” And the rest of America split itself into two screaming stadiums, chanting “Your side is worse!” louder and louder, like if we yell long enough, maybe one team will finally win.

But here’s the spoiler: no one wins.

Let’s strip this back to the obvious truth: Charlie Kirk was, before anything else, a human being. Not a brand, not a pundit, not a caricature on your feed. A human. He ate breakfast. He misplaced his keys. He hugged his family. He bled when cut.

You might have thought he was a free-speech warrior or a walking factory of bigotry—doesn’t matter. He was a man. And a man was shot in public, in America, where we’re supposed to have this idea—however tattered—that life is sacred.

Instead of honoring that, we turned his death into a team sport, a round of competitive moral gymnastics where each side tried to prove the other was the real monster.

Here’s the ugly truth: we’re all biased, all bigoted, all hypocrites in some form.

Some of us just hate cilantro. Some think pineapple on pizza is a crime against humanity. Some carry deep-rooted prejudices against entire groups of people. Most of the time, it’s irrational nonsense. And most of the time, it never leaves the world of opinion.

But lately, we’ve decided that opinions are enough to annihilate someone. Disagree? Cancel. Offended? Dehumanize. Opposed? Destroy.

We keep pretending there’s such a thing as purity, as sainthood, as unblemished greatness. But history tells us otherwise—loudly.

Every hero is a contradiction. Every saint is also a sinner. Every icon is a mess in their own right.

Greatness doesn’t erase rot, and rot doesn’t erase greatness. Humans contain both. Always have, always will.

Here’s where it gets worse: rage is currency now.

Politicians profit off your hate. Media companies profit off your hate. Tech giants profit off your hate. Every dunk, every retweet, every hate-share feeds the machine.

It’s not a bug. It’s the business model. Outrage is addictive, sticky, monetizable.

And unity? That’s worthless. If Americans actually stopped screaming at each other, the entire economy of division—from cable news to campaign PACs—would collapse overnight.

So remember: when you’re frothing online, you’re not resisting the machine. You’re the fuel.

Think this is just theory? Let me give you proof.

As I was literally writing this piece, some older woman randomly tagged me on LinkedIn.

Did she want to network? Share insight? Celebrate a career milestone? Nope.

She accused me of stealing money from her 30 years ago when I was working in law enforcement.

Problem: I’ve never met her.

I’ve never lived in San Francisco (she does).

I’ve never lived in California at all.

Her accusation wasn’t just wrong—it was pure fantasy.

She’s in her 80s, clearly having some issues. And I’ll be honest: part of me wanted to go nuclear. Blast her name across social media. Expose her as unhinged. Point out how mentally unstable she seemed.

I was that pissed.

But another part of me stopped.

Another part of me realized: she’s still human. She’s angry, she’s misguided, she’s lashing out—but she’s still human.

And maybe, just maybe, she deserves a sliver of compassion.

That’s the tug-of-war we’re all in, isn’t it? The instinct to strike versus the discipline to see another person’s humanity.

It’s not Democrats. It’s not Republicans. It’s not left versus right.

The real enemy is dehumanization—the slow erosion of empathy that makes it easier to tag someone as a monster than to admit they’re flawed like you.

That’s what killed Charlie Kirk.

That’s what poisons families, friendships, and feeds.

That’s what made an elderly woman in San Francisco decide I was a Jewish villain in her imaginary courtroom.

If you can’t hold those contradictions in your head—that humans can be wrong and human at the same time—then you’ve already surrendered your humanity to the machine.

This isn’t us versus them. There is no them. It’s just us. Stuck together, no matter how many walls we build online or off.

You can scream at your neighbor. You can tag strangers with lies. You can meme your way through tragedy. But you can’t opt out of living on the same rock.

And if every crisis becomes another round of “prove the other side is worse,” then the endgame isn’t victory—it’s annihilation.

So here’s my radical suggestion: next time tragedy strikes, don’t be first to post. Don’t race to dunk. Don’t treat death like a trending topic. Just…be human.

Because if we don’t stop this cycle, the final scoreboard won’t say Right vs. Left. It won’t say Us vs. Them.

It’ll just say:

Game Over. Everyone Loses.

And the worst part? We’ll deserve it.