I was retweeted by Ann Coulter last week for my Sep. 12 post:
From today’s 2Way show:
Jacob: I’m a Princeton student, currently on a two-year break working in marketing for my professor. I’ve been a conservative my whole life. I grew up in Seattle—that’s where I am now.
When I was in the Ivy League, which is very left-wing, there was this unspoken rule: you had to lie to your teachers and professors, it was harder to make friends, you had to keep a tight circle.
The way I saw this story, I felt it on three levels. First, the grief for his family and friends—especially his daughter, who will never see her father again. Second, the thoughts about stochastic terrorism, why this happened, and how he got shot. But the third, which I didn’t expect, was people I knew telling me he deserved to die.
When I asked them why, young Gen Z people said it was because of his opinions—on abortion, on guns, views that I’ve held my entire life. One person even refused to answer whether I deserve to die. That shocked me.
Scrolling through Twitter and Reddit, glued to my phone these past few days, I’ve seen people openly say these things. I don’t know the percentage—maybe it’s 5%, maybe 25%—but it’s a huge number of people. They don’t just want assassinations of other people; they’re at least undecided on the assassination of me.
Mark Halperin:
Wow, Jacob. These aren’t people you know, right? These are social media interactions?
Jacob:
There was one person I knew who refused to answer, and then thousands more I’ve seen on social media. Honestly, my question to you is: what do I do with that information? I never realized how many people are this violent and hateful. I don’t know what to do with that.
