By amplifying comments that would never have been broadcast in an ecosystem dominated by traditional media, the Internet has completely changed society and public debate. One of its unfortunate consequences is political radicalization, widely discussed among young men who are more right-wing. Even in France, far from their American sphere of influence, who hasn’t heard of Andrew Tate or Nick Fuentes? Most of the right does not hesitate to denounce them, rightly so, because partisan logic should never take precedence over common sense. The fact remains that the dissemination of these ideas, and the audience success they reap among the English-speaking public, is worrying.
A tragic story in the United States has once again brought out the worst of the Internet, but this time among progressive women. Lindsay Clancy, a 36-year-old mother, is in court for the murder of her three children, aged 5 years, 3 years and 8 months. His defense calls for acquittal for lack of criminal responsibility, citing postpartum psychosis. The prosecutor instead argues that the triple murder was carefully planned, as evidenced by the accused’s search history and the fact that she sent her husband shopping before committing the act. This case is part of the eternal debate on criminal responsibility, which also played out in France following the murder of Sarah Halimi. This affair ultimately becomes yet another battlefield in the culture war dividing Americans, further widening the gap that already seemed to separate them.
Runaway effect
With the media coverage of this sordid story came a wave of sympathy that was, to say the least, unexpected, while many women on the networks identified with the murderer, who had become a muse in the fight against a ” system “ who would ignore and neglect the suffering of women. TikTok was thus invaded by videos of mothers rocking their children with the inscription “same, Lindsay” (Me too, Lindsay)and demonstrators appeared in front of the court wearing pink T-shirts. On September 4, the trial was canceled because the jury was unable to reach a decision, due to a single juror refusing to acquit after days of deliberations. As of that date, the online fundraiser created for Clancy’s parents had raised more than $1.1 million, from more than 33,000 donors.
This is enough to make the blood run cold. What could cause so many people to overlook the murder of three children and instead identify with their perpetrator? In similar cases pitting criminal liability against claimed insanity, opinion is usually almost unanimously behind the prosecution. This time, not only did a movement emerge in favor of the accused, the case became a political cause, almost a social movement, with the toxic narrative of the war of the sexes in the background. It’s hard not to see this as a tangible manifestation of online radicalization, from which no political movement is spared.
Internet users defend a mother who strangled her three children to make it a “progressive” fight
The shift of public debate to the web has thus brought its share of deleterious effects. This shift has accentuated the clan logic, specific to politics and deeply rooted in human nature, which so often pushes us to “choose a side” rather than thinking about the issues in a nuanced way. When an event occurs, we are called to react with likes, often impulsively. This runaway effect sometimes reveals the worst in human beings, as when thousands of Internet users defend a mother who strangled her three children, to make it a “progressive” fight, part of the regrettable trend of reversing suffering to make new victims of the guilty.
The movement around Lindsay Clancy shows us, in a frightening way, that no one has a monopoly on radicalism today. Young men have nothing to envy of young women who, according to the Gallup Institute, have moved more along the political spectrum in recent years. The challenge, however, is not to point fingers or find culprits, but to escape from this deadly logic which threatens to abolish common sense, and to transform every fact of society into an ultra-polarized battlefield.
