Member-only story
“The critical moment is on us. Now is the time to deal with it.”: We Cannot be Moderate
As I was scrolling through social media a couple of weeks ago, a meme popped up that really caught my attention, and I have been thinking about it ever since. The meme shows Devarjaye “D.J.” Daniel, a 13-year-old from Texas who received a brain cancer diagnosis in 2018. Doctors gave him five months to live, and he has lived for seven years since that diagnosis. D.J. attended Trump’s Joint Address to Congress as the president’s guest, and Trump acknowledged D.J. during his speech, pointing out that D.J. always wanted to enter law enforcement and instructing Secret Service director Sean Curran to make D.J. an agent of the United States Secret Service. Curran then gives D.J. his Secret Service Agent credentials.
The meme shows D.J., at the address, holding out the credential to the crowd. The text, framing his image, reads, “When you can’t stand and cheer for a courageous boy who’s fought cancer for 6 years, you have lost your soul.” What stood out to me about this meme was the last phrase claiming if someone did not stand and clap at this moment then that person had lost whatever sense of decency they may have had and ultimately lost their soul, damning them for all eternity. I try to refrain, for the most part, from posting to things like this because I know how quickly the discussion devolves into…
