"After months of trying to convince anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, and anti-social distancers that lifesaving measures are both for their own good and for that of others," many people are frustrated and some may even give in to gloating when a prominent anti-vaxxer dies of COVID-19, Fr. James Martin writes in a New York Times essay. But "crowing over someone's suffering or demise" is "cruel," and "no matter how much I disagree with anti-vaxxers, I know that schadenfreude over their deaths is a dead end."
MSNBC's Chris Hayes was very careful to avoid schadenfreude Monday when he discussed Friday's COVID death of Robert Lamay, "a Washington State Police officer who became something of a hero on the anti-vax right after he was fired from his job last October for refusing to get vaccinated." Lamay told Gov. Jay Inslee (D) to "kiss my a--," earning him "particularly notoriety" and two interviews on Fox News.
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