Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The absurdity of American justice under this political climate could not be more glaring. We live in a reality where the party—and the president—they rally behind not only excused but outright pardoned people who violently assaulted police officers on January 6, shattering windows, beating law enforcement with flagpoles, and storming the Capitol in an attempt to overturn an election. Those acts were reframed as “patriotic tourism” or “peaceful protest,” with some perpetrators celebrated as martyrs and invited onto right-wing talk shows.

Yet now, in a stunning display of selective outrage, the same crowd is losing its collective mind over a protester throwing… a sandwich. Yes—a sandwich. Not a brick. Not a firebomb. Not even a shoe. A piece of bread, maybe with turkey, hurtling through the air in the general direction of a government official. The response? Slap the protester with a felony charge, as though they’d attempted an assassination. Suddenly, the party of “free speech” and “peaceful assembly” becomes the party of “lock them up” if the protester happens to oppose their side.

It’s not just hypocrisy—it’s performance art at this point. Violence against officers in defense of Donald Trump is rebranded as heroism. A deli item in protest of a Republican policy? That’s domestic terrorism, apparently. The double standard is so stark it’s practically blinding.

If a sandwich is a felony, then surely the January 6 rioters deserved far more than the pardons and political embraces they received. But that’s the problem—this isn’t about law and order, it’s about power and optics. The ruling party punishes its critics with the full weight of the legal system while shielding its loyalists, no matter how egregious their crimes. This isn’t justice—it’s petty authoritarianism with a side of hypocrisy, hold the mayo.