It’s always the “but” that gets you. There you are, hurtling through the start of the sentence, making all the right points, saying all the necessary things, conveying all that needs to be conveyed, and then, Bam!, out comes that pesky coordinating conjunction that ruins the exercise in an instant. In her revolting statement on the assassination of Brian Thompson, the former CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts fell prey to this trap. “Violence is never the answer,” Warren said. “But,” she continued, “people can only be pushed so far.”
Ah.
As one might have augured, Warren’s “but” was the overture to a catastrophic series of statements that, taken together, rendered all that came before them entirely moot. The killing represented “a warning,” Warren suggested, “that if you push people hard enough they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the health care to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone.”
There’s a word for this sort of argument in the expansive English language. That word is “justification.”
Contrast Warren’s words with those from her fellow Democratic senator, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. About the murderer, Fetterman said, “He’s the asshole that’s going to die in prison.” About those celebrating him online, Fetterman said, “A sewer is going to sewer: that’s what social media is about.” About the mainstream press’s sympathetic takes, Fetterman said, “I don’t know why the media wants to turn that into a story, just with these trolls saying these kinds of things anonymously like that.” His conclusion was perfect: “Remember,” Fetterman advised, “he has two children that are going to grow up without their father. It’s vile. And if you’ve gunned someone down that you don’t happen to agree with their views or the business that they’re in, hey, you know, I’m next, they’re next, he’s next, she’s next.”
Americans seeking good examples should resolve to be a Fetterman rather than a Warren.
I mean, National Review can go all the way to hell, but this seems like a good fit for this particular community for that very reason