There is a social media swarm going on right now, which is something that can sometimes be very distasteful. People have put their internet outrage in high gear over something that was tweeted by a young conservative talker, apparently some time ago, and people from both sides of the aisle are jumping in on the action. Such a thing is often a good time to warn about mob mentality or “signaling”, but in this case I’ll make an exception on the simple grounds that Tomi Lahren of TheBlaze TV is, in fact, a monster. A cruel and grotesque one.

No, that’s not sarcasm. She’s awful. Here is what the monster said.

You know when Tomi begins with “it’s not uncompassionate” that it’s about to be something absolutely bereft of compassion. And in this case, human decency, simple reasoning, or a basic grasp of history and humanity that even a middle school child should possess.

But then, that absolute intellectual and moral vacuity is her calling card, isn’t it?

It’s not, you see, that we ask who Syrian refugees are and why they are coming here. That, of course, is simply reasonable. It’s the bit she has in a quote on her picture, like something she is proud of. “Americans stand up and fight for faith, family, and freedom,” she says, which is true of a lot of Americans, though not necessarily Tomi herself. Then she adds “Syrians run away.”

First of all, this is an absolutely contradictory tweet. Her text comment says we should ask “who they are sending over here,” which clearly implies that there are some who should be allowed to come and others who should not. But her statement she quotes on a picture as if she is proud of it says the opposite. “Syrians” she says with a sweeping pronouncement of an entire people, “run away.” So they’re all worthless then? Why bother to ask who is being sent, then?

Second, “sent” is a stupid way to put it. They aren’t being “sent” they are fleeing. That’s what refugee means. Now you may say “but Caleb, they are sending terrorists pretending to be refugees,” to which I would reply “not according to Tomi’s own quote.” She says they are running away from conflict. That literally means they are refugees. They’ve fled from a war zone. Refugee.

So on the one hand, she’s saying that all Syrians are cowards with no regard for their families or their homeland or freedom or eagles, and therefore we should not accept them. On another hand, she is saying we need to know who is who so we can figure out which moral cowards are acceptable and which are terrorists. On another hand, she’s suggesting they are all terrorists and should be kept out entirely. And on a fourth and final hand, she’s saying that they really are, in fact, refugees fleeing destruction, but it’s not “uncompassionate” to tell them to screw off.

That’s four hands. What do you call someone with four hands? A monster. Tomi Lahren is a monster.

In this picture taken Friday, Jan. 20, 2017 from the balcony of the Abdul-Hamid Khatib home, people walk through mounds of rubble which used to be high rise apartment buildings in the once rebel-held Ansari neighborhood in the eastern Aleppo, Syria. The street looks as if it was hit by an earthquake and the bombed out building in a former rebel-held northeastern neighborhood of Aleppo is deserted except for the second floor apartment where Khatib and his family are staying. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Look, I love TheBlaze. Leon works at TheBlaze. I love their TV division. Dana’s show is there. Good people and both personal friends. But Tomi Lahren is not cut from the same cloth. She’s not even in the same fabric store. Not least because most clothing is made for people with a normal number of arms and hands.

There is a terrible war in Syria. The death and destruction are being dealt by all sides. Whole cities are in the process of being converted to rubble. Men, women, and children are being killed by conflict or even singled out and executed. It is a genocide. I’m sure typing messages onto glossy, soft-focus, “hey fellas” posed photographs feels like a great big brave defense of freedom and family, but for people who are facing annihilation and the daily fear that someone might blow a hole through their baby’s forehead, fleeing to somewhere that freedom and safety and a future await seems like kind of a good option.

Unless you’re a monster.

Update: I don’t know how I missed this, but I just saw it in the replies to her tweet. Apparently the word “monster” occurred to more than one person.