Introduction
It’s just Monday, and I’m already exhausted from the stupid. Last week alone there were five mass shootings—five. Two on the 27th and three more on the 28th. That’s how routine this horror has become, so normalized that we have entire websites tracking the who, what, where, when, and why of these tragedies. It’s like a scoreboard for suffering, something you’d expect from a sporting event, not the daily life of a nation. Yet here we are, keeping score of devastation as if it were some grim game. We can check the numbers, compare the incidents, and scroll through the losses, but nothing about it feels real anymore. The statistics blur into one another, a cruel tally of lives ended or shattered. This is the America we’ve built, and somehow it’s only Monday.
A Nation Keeping Score
The fact that we even have mass-shooting trackers should tell you everything. This is how frequent and predictable these events have become—like weather reports or sports scores. Every detail is cataloged: victims, locations, perpetrators, motives. Yet when I look for signs of leadership, I see nothing. No statements from the White House mourning the dead. No flags lowered to half-staff in remembrance of lives cut short. No legislation introduced to carve out even a single day of national mourning. Even when one of these tragedies happens in a church, a sacred place, the silence from those in power is deafening. It’s as if the victims disappear the moment the news cycle moves on.
The Absence of Mourning
What strikes me most is not just the frequency of these events but the absence of collective mourning. We are told to move on, to treat these moments as isolated rather than systemic. Each incident is framed as an anomaly, yet our trackers and data show otherwise. I can’t help but think about how this shapes us, how it numbs our sense of empathy and outrage. If leadership can’t even acknowledge our pain, what does that say about the value placed on human life? We’re not asked to grieve, to pause, or to reflect. We’re simply expected to absorb the news, shrug, and go about our day. This is the new normal, and it’s anything but normal.
A Glimpse of Restraint
One strange silver lining—or maybe just a shift in tone—was the absence of calls for civil war after the latest tragedies. Eighty days ago, after one particular incident, the air was filled with threats and anger, some of it openly violent. This time, that rhetoric didn’t immediately flare up. Maybe people are too exhausted. Maybe the outrage has burned itself out. But the relief is cold comfort, like finding shelter in a collapsing house. We’re still in the same place, still surrounded by the same problems, still watching the numbers climb. Even our restraint feels like resignation.
The Next Level of Stupid
This is next-level stupid—the kind of stupid that makes you want to grab someone by the shoulders and ask if they’re even awake. It’s “please tell me you’re not in charge of children” stupid. It’s the kind of ignorance that wipes its own mouth and still doesn’t know it’s drooling. We’ve created systems so broken, so absurd, that even common sense feels radical. Yet here we are, normalizing the absurdity. Normalizing the carnage. Normalizing silence from the people who are supposed to lead. This isn’t just a problem; it’s a sickness that’s seeped into our culture.
Summary and Reflection
By the time Monday rolls around, the weight of it all is already suffocating. We have trackers to catalog the dead, but no leaders to honor them. We have numbers but not names, scores but not stories. And still, week after week, the cycle repeats without change or accountability. This is the country we’ve built, one where mass shootings are so common that they’re measured like rainfall. The outrage is there, but it’s buried under exhaustion, cynicism, and numbness. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that it doesn’t have to be this way. We’re capable of more—of grief, of action, of refusing to let the stupid win. But right now, it’s only Monday, and I’m already tired of it.