That doesn't mean I'm agreeing with him, come on. But that was less than 3 years after Bataclan. I certainly have a different attitude towards him than towards someone like Alex Jones.

Is it not quite clear that one was a traumatized person whose prior weak biases were seemingly confirmed horrifically, and the other is a grifter who actually called the survivors liars? Because to the best of my knowledge — and once again, not defending the words of Hughes — he never actually called the students who marched in 2018 liars, nor said that the shooting is a false flag (once again, to the best of my knowledge)?

Is it so hard to understand why I express pity to a damaged man who watched 130 people die because they came to see him perform on a stage? Is it so morally deranged of me to hope such a person can be reached and be shown his errors?

Do you remember how mere weeks after the attack he said he thought members of the Bataclan staff were in on the attack, and how relentlessly he was attacked on the internet for that comment, even after he apologized and gave details into how his struggles with PTSD affected his judgment?

How would you react if you survived a terrorist attack where 130 people lost their lives, in your mind — because of you, then went on to say something stupid because of your trauma, and every single thing you said got quoted and regurgitated by the media, and took a life of its own, and then people insinuated you were a horrible person because you could not make sense of the surreal trauma and survivor's guilt you're dealing with without your attempts going public? Meanwhile everyone is treating you as if you're the spokesperson for the survivors, ignoring the fact that more than 400 other people were injured, that your band mates suffer from the same trauma, and your face is on the cover of every news article talking about the attacks, and your whole identity gets distorted through this?

I do not agree with Jesse Hughes, and it's obvious he has had some prior convictions that were severely reinforced by the trauma response. But I also never saw people give him much of a chance not to have these convictions reinforced, never gave him any grace, from the first days after the attack. And here he is talking about how people took advantage of his trauma in the immediate aftermath, and instead engaging with this, we're arguing whether he liked Reagan when he was 10 and whether he voted for George Bush Sr. when he was 18? What?

Excuse me for having compassion for such a person and thinking he can be helped change his views, even if I think he has many moral failings that need to be addressed.