Comfortable With Hatred

There’s a photo going around of a kid beaten against a wall, the guy who did it smiling at the camera with a thumbs-up. The replies are what you’d expect if you’ve scrolled Facebook: Right move. Self-termination for the left would solve things. Most people don’t even pause.

Right-wing extremism in Germany stopped being fringe at some point and nobody marked the moment. Now it’s everywhere on social media—people anonymous enough to say what they actually think about refugees, about migrants, about anyone marked as wrong. It spans everyone, from tabloid readers to educated people. That’s the part that’s actually unsettling.

There’s a blog, Kartoffeln im Netzfisch, that collects the worst posts. I look at it sometimes and feel tired more than anything. Just the weight of all that hostility taking up space, from people who will never change their minds, in a country I also live in. What’s the point of looking? Not sure. But I keep looking.