Ep. 21: Are We Losing Our Humanity? (w. David)
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
When someone we disagree with dies, how should we respond?
The recent death of Senator Lindsey Graham sparked an outpouring of reactions online—some respectful, others openly celebratory. Around the same time, the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson prompted thousands of people to publicly justify or even celebrate violence. Rather than debating the politics of either person, Matti and guest co-host David ask a broader question: What do these moments reveal about us?
In this episode, they explore how outrage can make it easier to dehumanize people we disagree with, why empathy shouldn’t depend on political affiliation, and whether our increasingly online lives have changed the way we communicate with one another. The conversation touches on political violence, social media, digital permanence, LGBTQ identity, public speculation, and the assumptions we make about people we don’t truly know.
Throughout the discussion, Matti and David challenge each other to think beyond partisan talking points. Instead of asking who “deserves” compassion, they explore what happens when we begin deciding which people are worthy of our humanity—and which aren’t.
Whether you agree with every conclusion or not, this episode invites you to pause, question your assumptions, and consider how we can disagree without losing our ability to see one another as human.
Topics discussed include:
Public reactions to the death of Lindsey Graham
The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson
Political violence and moral consistency
Empathy in a polarized culture
LGBTQ identity and public speculation
How slogans can carry different meanings for different audiences
Social media, privacy, and digital permanence
The role of grace and forgiveness in public discourse
TRANSCRIPT
Matti: David, welcome back to the show.
David: Thanks, Matti. Great to be back.
Matti: I wanted to start with something that’s been bothering me. Over the weekend, Senator Lindsey Graham passed away from what officials described as a heart condition. He was obviously a deeply controversial political figure, and people had strong opinions about him. But what struck me almost immediately after his death wasn’t the political debate—it was the flood of videos on social media where people felt the need to explain why they weren’t sad he died. Some went even further, listing all the reasons they believed he was a terrible person or arguing that his death wasn’t really a loss at all. I’ve noticed this pattern before, and it’s making me increasingly uncomfortable.
David: There are really two separate questions here. The first is how you personally feel when someone you strongly disagree with dies. The second is whether you feel the need to publicly announce those feelings. Those are related questions, but they’re not exactly the same.
Matti: The pattern is what concerns me. I thought back to the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. We saw people openly celebrating his death because they believed he represented a corrupt healthcare system. Maybe people genuinely believed he was responsible for terrible decisions. But I worry about a society where someone dies—or is even murdered—and our first instinct is to explain why that’s actually a good thing. You don’t have to mourn someone you never knew. You don’t have to pretend you admired them. But I would hope we could at least acknowledge that a human life was lost. Brian Thompson had a wife and children. Lindsey Graham was someone’s family member and friend. Regardless of political disagreements, I don’t understand the impulse to immediately justify why their death isn’t tragic.
David: Let me push on that for a second. Is it ever okay to feel relieved or even happy when someone dies? I’ll use the most extreme example I can think of: Osama bin Laden. Most Americans celebrated when he was killed. He was also someone’s father. Is that different?
Matti: I’ve thought about that a lot. I think it is different. When you’re talking about someone like Osama bin Laden—a universally recognized terrorist responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people—that’s fundamentally different from talking about a U.S. senator, a CEO, or a political commentator. People might passionately disagree with Lindsey Graham or Brian Thompson or Charlie Kirk, but we’re simply not talking about the same level of evil. We also have to distinguish between governments using military force in response to acts of war and individuals deciding they’re morally justified in taking someone else’s life. Those aren’t equivalent situations.
David: I agree. But I think we’ve reached a point where politics has become something much bigger than politics. For many people, it functions almost like religion. Their political beliefs become their entire moral framework. Once that happens, anyone outside that framework isn’t just someone with different ideas—they become evil. And if they’re evil, then people begin treating them like they’re the moral equivalent of someone like Osama bin Laden. That’s an incredibly dangerous place for a society to end up.
Matti: The phrase that kept running through my mind while I was thinking about this was “slippery slope.” Once we start deciding which deaths are acceptable and which aren’t, where does that stop? If someone believes Brian Thompson’s murder was justified because of decisions he made as a CEO, what’s next? Who else becomes fair game simply because someone has a grievance against them? There’s a massive difference between disagreeing with someone—or even believing they’ve done harm—and orchestrating something like 9/11. I just wish we relied on common sense a little more before collapsing all of those distinctions.
David: Brian Thompson actually worries me even more than Lindsey Graham. At least Lindsey Graham was an elected official making public policy. Brian Thompson was running a private company. To see people celebrate someone being murdered in the street because they believed he represented a broken healthcare system was honestly shocking. You only reach that point if you’ve convinced yourself that your own moral worldview is unquestionably correct and anyone outside of it deserves whatever happens to them.
Choosing Silence
Matti: One thing I keep coming back to is that nobody is required to mourn someone they disagreed with. That’s true. But nobody is required to say anything either. Sometimes acknowledging that a person died is enough. Sometimes silence is the better response.
David: That also reflects the culture we live in now. People feel the need to publicly share every opinion they have. We post what we ate for lunch. We document every thought. So when someone controversial dies, people naturally feel like they also have to announce how they feel about that.
Matti: That’s fair. But I also want to point out that there were people who modeled a different response. Former President Joe Biden, for example, acknowledged Lindsey Graham’s death respectfully while recognizing that they had disagreed politically. I also saw political commentator Ana Navarro say something that really resonated with me. She basically argued that you don’t have to admire someone to avoid being inhumane. You can disagree with a person’s record while still recognizing that death is sad. Brad Polumbo made a similar point afterward, emphasizing that we don’t have to dehumanize people simply because we opposed them politically. Outside of the Osama bin Ladens of the world, death is usually tragic—and if we don’t have something constructive to add, maybe we don’t have to add anything at all.
David: What’s interesting is that Lindsey Graham wasn’t even viewed as the most conservative senator by many Republicans. Right before we started recording, I watched Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan talk about their friendship and the fact that Lindsey Graham voted to confirm her. Many Republicans actually criticized him for being too willing to work across the aisle. That doesn’t mean people had to agree with his positions, but it does show that human beings are always more complicated than the simplified versions we create online.
Assumptions, Identity, and Compassion
Matti: Another conversation surrounding Lindsey Graham’s death centered on longstanding rumors that he’s a closeted gay man who nevertheless supported legislation that many people felt was harmful to the LGBTQ community. Speaking as a member of that community myself, I found some of the commentary unsettling. Even if those rumors were true—and to be clear, they’ve never been confirmed—we don’t know someone’s internal struggle. Coming to terms with your identity can be incredibly complicated. I understand why people would criticize legislation they believe harmed the LGBTQ community, but I don’t think it’s fair to judge someone’s private journey or assume we know what they’re wrestling with internally. Especially for a Republican senator from South Carolina, there could have been emotional, cultural, or political pressures none of us can fully understand. I just don’t think compassion should disappear because we disagree with someone.
David: My first reaction is that I’m not even sure it’s a fair conversation to have. We’re building an entire narrative around rumors about someone’s sexuality. Why? Because he never married? Because people have speculated for years? We simply don’t know. And frankly, it’s almost beside the point. If someone disagrees with his legislative record, then criticize the legislation. That’s a perfectly legitimate political argument. But once we start assuming we know someone’s private life and then judging them based on those assumptions, we’ve wandered into territory that’s both unfair and impossible to verify.
Matti: That’s really my point. Some of the people celebrating his death were using those rumors as evidence that he was somehow a hypocrite who deserved criticism beyond his politics. But I think members of the LGBTQ community, of all people, understand that people navigate their identities in very different ways. Some people come out young. Others never do. Some struggle with internalized shame. Some spend decades trying to reconcile different parts of themselves. Whatever someone’s journey is, it’s ultimately about them—not about us. I don’t think it’s productive to weaponize something so personal simply because we dislike someone’s politics.
Words Matter, Too
Matti: There was another video I watched after Lindsey Graham’s death that really stuck with me. The creator pivoted fairly quickly from talking about Graham himself to discussing violence against minority communities, the importance of amplifying marginalized voices, and showing compassion toward vulnerable groups. Much of what they said resonated with me. But then they ended the video with the phrase, “Free Palestine.”
What struck me wasn’t even the phrase itself—it was the assumption behind it. It was presented almost as though everyone watching would naturally hear those words the same way and agree they belonged in a message about opposing violence. But that’s simply not true. For many people, “Free Palestine” is a call for freedom and self-determination. For others—particularly many Jewish people, Israelis, and others—the phrase has become associated with moments where it was shouted alongside or immediately surrounding acts of violence. I think about the man accused of murdering two Israeli embassy employees in Washington, D.C., who reportedly shouted “Free Palestine” during the attack.
My point isn’t to debate the slogan itself. It’s that if your overall message is one of compassion and opposition to violence, we should also be thoughtful about the language we choose, especially when different audiences may experience that language very differently. Perception matters. And in many ways, that brings us back to where we started: just as we shouldn’t assume everyone shares our reaction to someone’s death, we also shouldn’t assume everyone hears our words the same way we do.
David: My first thought was actually about relevance. If someone is specifically discussing Lindsey Graham’s foreign policy or his support for Israel, then ending with “Free Palestine” at least connects to the topic. But in the context you described, it feels like another example of something we’ve been talking about throughout this conversation: politics becoming an entire belief system. It’s almost as if once someone adopts a certain political worldview, all of the associated slogans and causes travel together, whether they naturally fit the conversation or not.
When Politics Becomes Identity
David: I’ve actually developed a simple test for this. In the United States, we basically have two major political parties. When election time comes, everyone has to choose the party that most closely aligns with their values. But that’s very different from agreeing with that party about everything.
If someone finds themselves agreeing with their political party on virtually every issue—economic policy, foreign policy, social issues, education, healthcare, immigration, everything—that should probably give them pause. These are incredibly broad coalitions made up of hundreds of different ideas. It would be remarkable if any one person naturally arrived at every single one of those conclusions independently.
To me, that’s often a sign that politics has stopped being politics and started functioning more like religion. Instead of evaluating issues individually, you’ve accepted an entire belief system wholesale.
Matti: There’s a phrase I really like: We can’t have it all. Every decision involves trade-offs. Every political party has strengths and weaknesses. Every platform includes positions we’ll probably agree with and others we won’t. So I think you’re right. If someone finds themselves in complete agreement with every position their party takes, it’s worth asking whether they’ve truly wrestled with those issues for themselves or simply inherited the entire package.
David: Exactly. At the end of the day, everyone still has to vote. You eventually have to choose which imperfect option best reflects your priorities. But that’s very different from believing your side is morally flawless and the other side is completely evil.
Should Politics Have a Place in Sports?
Matti: After all that, let’s shift to something a little lighter—although only slightly. During the World Cup, there was a controversial red card issued to U.S. forward Folarin Balogun that would have forced him to miss the next match. Most commentators agreed the call was overly harsh, but what really caught my attention was what happened afterward. President Trump reportedly contacted FIFA to push for the suspension to be reduced, and ultimately Balogun was allowed to play. My first reaction was that this is exactly why so many people criticize Trump. He has this instinct to step into situations that don’t really involve him, and somehow people often accommodate it. I also found myself wondering whether that’s even healthy for sports. Part of the beauty of sports is that officials make judgment calls. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re wrong, and that’s part of the game. Once outside political figures start influencing those outcomes, it feels like you’re changing the rules after the fact.
David: I actually have two different reactions. First, I think the original call was genuinely terrible. Almost everyone who follows soccer agreed it never should have been a red card. There were examples throughout the tournament of players committing nearly identical fouls and receiving much lighter punishment. So from a purely sporting perspective, I absolutely think the suspension should have been overturned.
The second question is how that happened. Modern sports already have systems for correcting obvious mistakes after games. The NBA reviews certain plays after the fact. Other leagues use replay, disciplinary committees, or appeals processes to make sure major errors don’t affect future games. To me, FIFA should already have had a formal mechanism to review something like this.
Matti: And if FIFA had that process built into the rules, I’d have no problem with it. Baseball has replay reviews now. Basketball has replay. Technology has changed sports, and that’s fine. My issue isn’t with correcting mistakes—it’s with correcting them because a head of state decides to make a phone call. Those are two very different things. If the league independently reviews its own decisions, that’s part of the sport. If an outside political figure gets involved, it starts feeling like the rules apply differently depending on who’s asking.
David: That’s fair, but I also think this says as much about FIFA as it does about Trump. FIFA has long had a reputation for bending under political pressure. World leaders have weighed in on FIFA decisions before. Trump calling wasn’t unprecedented. If FIFA ultimately changed course because of outside influence, that’s really an indictment of FIFA’s governance more than Trump’s personality. Trump being Trump isn’t exactly surprising.
Matti: That’s probably true. What struck me was how casually he talked about it afterward. He basically said, “I thought it was the wrong call, so I called.” That’s what stayed with me. He genuinely sees himself as someone who should be able to intervene in almost any situation if he believes he has the answer.
David: And maybe in this case he happened to be right that the call itself was wrong. But ideally, the system should already have been capable of fixing that mistake without needing a phone call from the President of the United States.
Matti: Exactly. If the process works, nobody has to rely on political influence to get the right outcome.
Living in a World Where Nothing Is Private
Matti: One thing you said earlier about people publicly broadcasting every opinion they have actually reminds me of another article I sent you from New York Magazine. It explored what happens in a world where almost nothing we write stays private anymore. Text messages, emails, group chats—if they become relevant during litigation, they can end up in discovery and eventually become public. Sometimes the person whose messages are exposed isn’t even the one being sued. They simply happened to be part of the conversation. Reading those examples was honestly unsettling because it made me realize how permanent so much of our digital communication has become.
David: I’ve probably always been a little more cautious than most people about that. I don’t put sensitive information into emails or text messages unless I absolutely have to. Credit card numbers, Social Security numbers—those kinds of things almost always stay off my phone. My wife sometimes finds it frustrating because I’ll insist on discussing certain things over the phone instead of texting them, but electronic messages create a permanent paper trail. Once they’re sent, they never really disappear.
Matti: Even something as simple as filing taxes has changed. For years I struggled with sending financial documents electronically, but eventually I realized it’s just become part of modern life. Most of us have to trust encrypted systems at some point because that’s simply how business gets done now.
David: Right. At some point you have to accept the technology. But it’s still worth remembering that emails and text messages aren’t conversations—they’re records. They last forever.
Matti: What worries me even more isn’t necessarily financial information. It’s ordinary conversations between friends. Maybe you send an off-color joke in a private group chat or make a sarcastic comment that everyone involved understands. Ten years later, if that conversation becomes public without context, suddenly you’re being judged by people who weren’t part of it. That’s one of the reasons cancel culture has become so complicated.
David: Because of that possibility, I honestly do censor myself over text. If my friends start joking around in ways that cross certain lines, I usually don’t join in. It’s not that I’m afraid of every conversation—it’s just that I know written communication can survive indefinitely. There’s an expression I’ve heard before: write every text message as though it might someday be read aloud in court. That may sound extreme, but it’s probably not bad advice anymore.
Matti: I struggle with that because I spent so much of my life censoring myself. One of the things I’ve worked hardest on over the years is becoming more authentic and speaking more openly. So part of me resists the idea that I have to constantly filter myself again simply because everything is recorded forever.
David: I understand that. Personally, I also prefer voice notes over text because at least tone survives. Context survives. You can hear whether someone is joking, frustrated, excited, or sarcastic in a way that written words often can’t capture.
Matti: Although if those voice notes ever became evidence, they’d probably just get transcribed anyway.
David: That’s true. Which is another reminder that the real solution probably isn’t relying on technology—it’s simply trying to live in a way where, if your private conversations did become public, they wouldn’t completely contradict the kind of person you’re trying to be.
It’s Gonna Be Fine
Matti: As we wrap this up, one idea seems to connect everything we’ve talked about today. Whether it’s celebrating someone’s death, assuming the worst about people we disagree with, piling onto someone over an old text message, or refusing to give people the benefit of the doubt, the common thread is how little grace we’ve started extending to one another.
David: Exactly. Sometimes people say genuinely awful things and deserve criticism. But sometimes they simply make mistakes. Maybe they said something dumb in a private conversation years ago. Maybe they handled a situation poorly. If every mistake becomes proof that someone is irredeemable, then we’ve created a society where nobody is allowed to grow. We’d all be better off if we showed a little more charity, a little more grace, and recognized that human beings are complicated. We should leave room for people to learn, apologize, and become better versions of themselves.
Matti: Very well said! I think that’s a perfect place to end. David, thanks for another thoughtful conversation. This one covered some heavier topics than we usually tackle, but I always appreciate your willingness to wrestle with difficult questions instead of settling for easy answers.
David: Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Matti: And thanks to all of you for listening. We’ll see you next time.
This transcript has been edited for readability.
