I’m worried about the salad man. It’s tempting to make him a hero, but it doesn’t symbolize anything good. The salad man is what has been nicknamed the quiet man, dressed in a tuxedo, who on Saturday night, as chaos took over the ballroom of the Washington Hilton, sat very calmly eating his burrata salad at the correspondents’ dinner.
The others fell to the ground after hearing gunshots. Dozens of secret service agents began running between the tables at the gala, pulling Donald Trump to safety and yelling for everyone to take cover. There was a lot of confusion. Some of the journalists present said that, while they were under the tables, they did not know how many attackers there were, or whether the armed men who were taking over the place were attackers or from the security service. A man had tried to access the room to kill Donald Trump. Again. And there are three.
But this last one, on Saturday, was with almost the entire senior staff of the Government present (6 of 7 in the line of succession) and hundreds of journalists. And, in the midst of the chaos, CNN cameras captured the salad man eating calmly. Then he explained that his tuxedo was new, that he didn’t want to stain it, that he has back problems that prevent him from bending over and that he wanted to watch quietly because he is used to those things.
Violence is increasing, it is becoming normalized. Especially political violence. In the US, both from the extreme left and the extreme right. One-third of Americans believe the way to get the nation back on track is violence. A third! It is one of the symptoms of destabilization of democracies that Barbara Walter warns about in her book “How a Civil War Begins.” No country is safe, he says. And the risk increases when fueling tensions becomes profitable.
That’s what’s worrying about the salad man. That, in the midst of this growing feeling that anything can happen at any moment, we become desensitized to violence and stare.
Moral?
Against violence
indifference is dangerous
