About a week ago, an obviously deranged man, without any apparent provocation, stabbed an attractive white Ukrainian woman to death in a train in Charlotte. It was an awful murder, but it is hard to see what Charlotte government could have done to prevent it. The coverage of it on local TV was thorough but proportional to that given to other murders. Given time, interest in it would have waned.
But that was last week. Right-wing internet influencers picked up on the story after a few days. They passed it on to Fox News and more prominent reactionary commentators. The president weighed in. Today, it is a national story which stands for the proposition that American cities are completely overwhelmed by crime. It is national news, in other words, only because it fits a reactionary narrative.
Two things stand out to me. First, given Trump’s indifference to the plight of Ukraine, it is highly ironic that he is outraged by the death of a refugee whom he probably would have deported in time. Second, the story would have received less traction but for the fact that the victim was a good-looking blonde. That the murderer was a black guy was just the icing on the cake.