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At the Connecticut Capitol, you could walk ten feet and hear completely different conversations about trauma, incarceration, forgiveness, public safety, and political power all happening at once. Legislators rushed between hearing rooms while lobbyists and activists crowded the hallways behind the velvet rope areas where lawmakers often stop to talk off-camera.

What stood out to me was not how many reporters were there — there actually were not many. What stood out was how much of the conversation around major legislation now seems to happen between political operatives, advocacy groups, lobbyists, and activists shaping narratives in real time.

I thought I was covering a parole bill.

Instead, I ended up watching how modern political culture actually functions.

Inside the hearing rooms, lawmakers debated Senate Bill 503 — the proposal expanding parole eligibility for offenders whose crimes were committed before age 26. Supporters pointed to neurological development, rehabilitation, and second chances. Critics argued the bill risked reopening wounds for victims while minimizing accountability for serious crimes. Like most modern political debates, it was emotional, personal, and deeply divided.

But outside those rooms — and especially online — a very different kind of politics was unfolding.

At the same time the hearings were taking place, an individual connected to Black Lives Matter 860 was actively posting online from behind the velvet rope area where lobbyists, activists, and political operatives gathered during the debate. I do not know who the individual was or even whether they were male or female. What stood out was the overlap itself — activism inside the Capitol and online performance politics happening simultaneously in the same space.

One of the recurring themes in the online posts involved trauma, violence, forgiveness, and criminal justice reform. Trauma is real. It shapes people. Serious people should be able to acknowledge that without mocking it.

At the same time, the online culture surrounding many of these conversations often looked less like healing and more like public humiliation dressed up as activism.

Political opponents became memes. Women were reduced to labels like “Karen” or “Becky.” Violent imagery spread across social media as entertainment. One meme showed Connecticut gubernatorial candidate Erin Stewart tied to a stake in a witch-burning scene under the caption “It’s A Witch Hunt.” People laughed at it like it was just another joke for the algorithm.

The issue is not whether anyone literally wanted violence.

The issue is why American politics increasingly communicates through humiliation, ridicule, and symbolic cruelty while simultaneously claiming moral authority against violence itself.

That contradiction matters.

Movements asking the public to embrace rehabilitation, forgiveness, and restorative justice should also be willing to examine the culture surrounding their own activism. If empathy only extends toward ideological allies while political opponents are mocked, degraded, or treated like caricatures, people stop trusting the message.

And this is not unique to one side.

The right does it too. Social media rewards outrage more than persuasion because outrage travels faster. Cruelty performs better online than nuance ever will. But there is a particular irony when activists speak passionately about generational trauma while casually mocking the suffering of people outside their political tribe.

I watched conversations about Israel, Cuba, political opponents, and ideological enemies repeatedly collapse into the same pattern: compassion for one group, ridicule for another. Some pain was treated as sacred. Other pain became politically inconvenient.

That selective empathy is poisoning political culture.

What struck me most at the Capitol was the disconnect between the language being used inside the building and the behavior happening outside of it. In the hearing rooms, the conversations centered on healing, trauma, justice, and rehabilitation. But in the hallways behind the velvet rope — where lobbyists, operatives, activists, and media-connected advocacy groups all mix together — and later online, politics often looked more like performance, tribal signaling, and emotional bloodsport.

I went there expecting to cover legislation.

Instead, I walked away thinking about how easily modern political culture rewards cruelty as long as it is aimed at the “right” people.

The real danger facing the country may not simply be political violence itself.

It may be this slow normalization of humiliation and rhetorical cruelty that conditions people to stop recognizing dehumanization when it comes from their own side. Once humiliation becomes entertainment, accountability starts disappearing with it.

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