The Atlantic

Chelsea Clinton in the Hall of Mirrors

Once callout culture takes hold, it never ends.
Source: Rashid Abbasi / Reuters

When the two strangers accosted Chelsea Clinton, she was attending an NYU vigil for the Muslims murdered by a terrorist in Christchurch, New Zealand. “This right here is the result of a massacre stoked by people like you and the words that you put out into the world,” one declared as the other recorded the encounter. “I want you to know that, and I want you to feel that deep down inside. Forty-nine people died because of the rhetoric you put out there.”

The accuser’s blend of callous indignation and extravagant nonsense brought to mind charges that Chelsea’s parents murdered Vince Foster or that her mother committed treason when the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was attacked. But these critics weren’t right-wingers parroting talk radio. They were leftist NYU students.

It would be absurd to blame any anti-racist New York City cosmopolitan for an ethno-fascist’s decision to murder Muslims in a gambit to start a race war. The choice to blame Chelsea Clinton is particularly silly. Her recent activism attending a the response of Muslims to a hate crime in Portland, Oregon, and a horrific crime against a young Muslim.

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