Earlier this week, a story from the Cincinnati Zoo made international news. A young child crawled into the gorilla enclosure, and the gorilla was put down by the zoo to protect the child. I won't get too into the ethics of what happened, but quickly:
It's incredibly sad that the gorilla had to be killed, but it was also obviously the right decision: You save the child's life every time. I'm sure that these people at the zoo loved that animal. If they could have tranquilized it, they would have. And people who are blaming the parents for being neglectful don't understand how this kind of thing could literally happen to any parent. Even the best parents are going to have that moment of terror in a crowded place where they can't find their child. Most of the time, that moment ends with a parent finding the child and fighting back tears while saying, "Don't scare me like that!" But sometimes that kid is going to get himself into trouble. And even though we should mourn the death of the animal, we should also be thankful that zoo workers were able to save his life.
ANYWAY...
This is the kind of rage-inducing story that takes over the Internet for a week and causes long and angry rants on Twitter. Right now we're seeing that same cycle happen daily surrounding the Trump campaign and his many, many offensive and terrifying statements. So I think we owe a debt of gratitude to CNN for shooting the moon and combining these two rage-inducing events into one tidy package.
I mean, this is everything that we all hate about this election cycle, and yet at the same time it's almost beautiful and funny in its brazenness. Donald Trump said he thinks the zoo did the right thing, by the way, though he did think the gorilla seemed "beautiful" and "calm" with the child. Look, who cares. What are we even doing anymore? Politics has just gotten too fucking weird.
